A Fantastic Four Story: The Rubber God's Legacy
by PrIMaL2309
Summary: A man gets reincarnated as the least favorite member of the Fantastic Four after slighting a goddess. The world is mostly similar to the MCU, with a few artistic divergences to allow for the presence of the Fantastic Four.
1. Chapter 1

"Where am I?" I asked myself, as I woke up in some kind of queue, with people walking behind me and in front of me towards what can only be described as some kind of temple. Looking around, all the people surrounding me have a blank look in their eyes. I can see hundreds of people, but a mist is obscuring my vision for more than fifty meters.

Thinking to myself that it wouldn't be a good idea to stand out in a situation where everyone looks brainwashed or something, I just follow slowly, in silence, trying to keep my eyes from wandering too much in case we're being watched. After about twenty minutes with no sound being made but the shuffling of feet against the yellow tiled floor, no movement but the people slowly advancing towards a temple that doesn't look to be getting closer, no matter how much we walk towards it, and not seeing anyone else but us, I decided to be a little adventurous. Still walking in the direction of the temple, at the same speed as the others, i slowly inch to the right, trying to distance myself from the queue.

The moment I step out, however,-

"Finally! Dammit, that's why this part of the queue was stuck in the forgetting mist for the last half an hour. Come on, step out now, it's alright. I understand this might be scary, but we need to talk, and you obviously need answers. Come with me, don't worry, I'm not going to do anything."

As soon as my body was out the queue, a humongous beast four meter high and two meters wide with the head and tail of a bull addressed me. Quite frankly, I don't know what's the scariest thing, that an actual Minotaur like creature exists, or that I feel like it's normal for it to exist. Why do I feel that way? Now that I think about it, why did I not panic about anything around me?

"Now, please, I really need you to come with me, you're delaying everyone. My wife is going to kill me if I do any overtime again, so please, help a brother out and come with me alright?"

What the fuck is happening? Did that really just happened?

"Alright." My body answers without my input on the question, and starts following the Minotaur. What the fuck is happening to me?!

"I'm sorry about that, but I needed you to move, so I used a bit of persuasion. As soon as we're in the office I'll free you from it. There's mostly no side effect from it, and even then, something tells me you won't have to worry about that."

What? Side effects? Why wouldn't I worry about that? Am I going to die?

"Am I going to die?" Asks my body. Yes! Go me!

"Why would you die again so soon? Oh! Is it about what I just said? Oh no I just think you're going to get resurrected is all. So since you'll be getting a new body there is no need to worry about anything. Alright, just a couple more minutes and we're there."

I… I died? I mean, I guess the weird queue, the blank look, the temple, the mist and weird creature should have- no! No, what the fuck!? I died!?

"How did I die?"

"I don't know, probably saving someone since you're getting resurrected. I'm not omniscient, I'm just a guardian. She'll tell you everything you need to know. Alright, we're here. It's the second door on the left. Bye, now! Have a good rerun!" the Minotaur says as we arrive at the entrance of a decrepit looking house. Stepping through the open door, my body stops moving, and I suddenly fall on the ground with a loud thump, unable to move.

"Oh, my bad, there you go. Should be better. Don't dally, she doesn't like people who make her wait."

*Gasps* As I feel my body again, I take deep breaths to calm down. When I feel good enough to walk, I stand up, look behind me only to see the door slowly closing with a squeaking sound.

"Alright then…" I mutter, walking towards the second door on the left as the married Minotaur told me. About to knock on it, it suddenly opens. Stepping through, I see a small table on the ground in front of a huge bed, veiled from all sides. Is the person/creature on the other side so ugly as to have to hide itself from anyone, or is she really scared of mosquitoes?

"Okay, that's it! Stop thinking that shit! Forty-five minutes that I hear you thinking so loud and so rudely! I was going to explain everything to you despite everything, even after you called my house decrepit, but no. You don't get to get that anymore. Who do you think is one of the most hated characters in Marvel?"

What the f-

"Don't you dare finish that thought. Answer my damn question!"

I-

"And trying to think of nothing doesn't work either you shithead! Worst Marvel Character! Now!"

As hard as I try, I couldn't help but subconsciously think of Reed Richards despite my best efforts, and so...

"Mr. Fantastic it is! Get ready for a wild ride!"

"Wait! Don't I get a wish or a cheat ability or a system or anything? This is a reincarnation, right?!"

"You pissed me off, so no. But don't worry, I'll be nice to you, you won't get to remember your past life till you're back from the dimensional travel. If you do actually do the experiment that is…"

She muttered the last sentence just loud enough for me to hear, but when I asked "Wait, what?", I suddenly felt nothing but darkness encroach my mind.

*Gasps* "I… I've got to… to stop doing that…" I say, after waking up. Remember when I wasn't in control of my body in the underworld? Well the last nineteen years have been even worse. I was in the body of Reed Richards, saw him make stupid decisions after stupid decisions, but couldn't do anything about it.

Now, let's deal with the situation at hand. I appear to have my body stretched out. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, think about it becoming normal again, and open my eyes again. Slowly but surely, my arms and legs are pulled towards me, losing their elasticity.

Good, so I can actually control it by really focusing on it. I'll have to work on that, and speak about it to the others. Right! The others! So, this is a difficult situation. Difficult, because during those nineteen years, I didn't recognize this setup, this universe, from anything I read and seen in movies. Granted, I haven't read all of the comics, but even then, this is really different.

Being myself again, in one human sized body, I tentatively take a step forward. My foot touches the floor, and stays in form. The second step is the same. Perfect, let's do it. The room I'm in is blank. There's nothing but the bed in it, and I can't see any camera. I walk towards the door, put my ear against it, and hear nothing from the other side. I try to open it, but it's locked. There's no keyhole on my side. The gap between the door and the floor is just under a centimeter tall, so it's going to take some practice.

After a way longer hour than it had any right to be, my hand finally slips through the door, but instead of reaching out, I try to stay at the closest possible to the recess. As my hands slowly climbs against the door, I manage to find and unhook the latch holding the door closed. After trying out the door from my side, it doesn't appear to be locked anymore, so I pull my hand back and open it extremely slightly, trying to see in the corridor. It's a dark corridor, with five doors in it and nothing else. Walking to the nearest, I unlatch it and slowly open it. Seeing Sue inside, I go to her, and close it behind me.

"Sue.." I whisper. "Susan…" She slowly opens her eyes. Seeing me, she has a small smile, but it quickly morphs into horror. "

"Reed!"

"Shh!" I say, gesturing her to stay quiet. "I don't know where we are. After we came back, I woke up just like you did."

"Oh, thank god, we made it… Wait, what about the others? Are they… Johnny!"

"I just got out of my room and found you, I suppose they're in the other rooms. Take it easy. Breathe, slowly. You're losing control."

"What do you mean I'm losing control!" She says, as her hand and head slowly turns invisible.

"Calm down, we're okay, you're okay. We'll be home soon."

"Why wouldn't I be okay? Is there something wrong with me? Do I…"

To shut her up, as even her hair started disappearing, I did the only thing I could think of in the spur of the moment. I put my hands around where I last saw her face, caught what I thought were her cheeks, and kissed her on what I only hope was her mouth. Surprised at first, she calmed down in my hands, and started kissing back. Her hair, head and hands reappearing as the kiss deepened a bit.

"Okay, I can't believe I didn't do that sooner…"

"I was starting to think you never would," she answers.

"Now that you're calm, we-"

"I wouldn't say calm exactly…"

"Now that you're calmer, I need to talk, and you need to listen just a bit. Can you do that for me for a minute, please? Without freaking out too much?"

"What? Okay… I'll try…"

"So, the storm in that dimension seem to have affected all of us while we were in the pods. They seem to have affected our bodies, and given us mutations. I can apparently control the elasticity of my body while it seems you can control yours to become invisible. It took a little getting used to for me, and it should be the same for you. I told you not to freak out because it seems our emotional state affects our mutation and triggers our… power? When I woke up, I was literally the size of the room I was in. When you started getting worried, you became more and more invisible. See, it's happening again. Breathe, Sue, think about staying visible."

"I… I… My hand…"

"Clothe your eyes. Breathe, slowly. In… And out… In…" As we do the small breathing exercise, she slowly gets her hand to become visible again.

"This is going to take some use to, I know. But we need to check on the other. Can you come with me?"

I held out my hand, and as she opens her eyes again, and seeing her hands, she smiles as she takes mine. As we walk to the other door, we see Johnny on the bed. I tell her to talk with him, bet to keep her distance, just in case the mutation is more dangerous than ours, while I go check on Ben.

I already know about his mutation from all the source material in my last life, and I don't think a small pep talk about breathing is going to help him today, but that's not going to stop me from trying. If that doesn't work, science will find a way. If my science can't help him, I'll ask other scientists. If that doesn't cut it, I'll find someone else. The Ben of this universe saved my life multiple times, so I'll be damned if I can't repay him.

As I open the door, without much surprise, a huge pile of rock is on the corner of the room. It seems Ben is awake, as the floor tiles and a few wall tiles are broken, with the bed bent in multiple places.

"Ben. Talk to me, big guy."

"Reed? Is that you? No! Don't come near me! I'm a monster!" he says in a deep guttural voice.

"Ben, you're not a monster, you just became more than you were before."

"I don't want to be more! I want to be human! I don't want… this!..."

"Listen to me, I had the same problem as you did, and look at me, I'm back." He turns towards me slowly, eyeing me from the corner of his eye.

"Don't lie to me, Reed, you always tap against your hip when you lie!" Looking down, my right hand is truly repeatedly tapping against my right hip.

"Alright, I lied, I was not exactly like you, please, look." I extend a couple of y fingers, before extending my hand, and my arm.

"You don't look any different though! I'm a monster!"

"I have it under control, you can as well, just listen. Close your eyes, take a deep breath."

"I can't control it Red! I'm a pile of rocks!"

"Yes you can, you're stronger than this. Please, just try it." I say, and slowly, he closes his eyes. Or I think he closes his eyes, I can't actually see them…

"Now what?"

"Now, regulate your breathing, once it's slow enough, tell me." After a short time, his breathing became normal again. "Now, with your eyes still closed, think about the last time you saw yourself in a reflection. When was that, Ben?"

"It was… The day before the departure. I snuck out to a bar despite you telling me to be sober. The bar had a huge mirror behind the bottles."

"Good. What did you look like in the bar? Focus on this image, and try to imagine yourself sitting at that bar, looking at yourself in the mirror." To my surprise, it actually started to work, as the rock like appearance of his body started to disappear, starting from the top of his head, to his eyes, nose, the rest of his face. As his hand slowly came to be, Sue and Johnny opened the door, and Johnny, being the loudmouth that he is, couldn't help but shout:

"What the fuck is that thing!?" Ben, disrupted by the loud shout, opened his eyes, losing his concentration, and his body quickly returning to stone, but not fast enough for him not to see that it had started to work.

"Good going there, Johnny. Ben was almost through…"

"That's Ben?!" he shouts, pointing at the pile of rocks.

"Ben, you almost made it, it means you can control it, you're not a monster okay, I can help you-"

"I saw it, thank you, Stretch. I'll work on that don't you worry. I feel better already." He says, calmly, with what I can only assume is a small smiling tone. "Now, where are we? Cos' those aren't normal walls." Looking around, we see the walls, and now that I think about it, a few punches from the Thing should have left more than a couple of broken tiles…

"I don't know yet, but I haven't seen anyone or any camera yet. Let's try to get out of here." Walking out of his room, we turn to the last unopened door. Looking at each other, we slowly pry it open, before seeing white. Not like metaphorically, or because we were blinded, but because it's snowing. Snow and ice cover everywhere we look. Walking out of the building, the only thing that stands out is a small helicopter. While Sue and Ben walk back to the building to see if we haven't missed anything, Johnny and I walk towards the helicopter.

Opening a door, we jump a bit as a robotic voice says, without any intonation "Please board the aircraft and fasten your seatbelts to return to New York City." Standing on the white field and looking at Johnny, I see he's as lost as I am. Before I have the chance to say anything, Sue and Ben come back empty-handed from their search.

"Well," Johnny says, "the helicopter talked to us. That's new."

"What do you mean talked to-"

"Please board the aircraft and fasten your seatbelts to return to New York City." The same voice, with the same intonation sounds out.

"Okay… Reed, what do you think?"

"I mean… Sue?"

"I don't know… There was nothing there, and I'm getting cold out here."

"Don't worry about that, sis, I've got this!" he says and turns into flames, before Ben grabs him and throw him in the snow. "What the hell man!?"

"You want to burn our damn ticket home? What were you thinking?!" I mean… He has a point there.

"Johnny, try to refrain from spontaneously combusting into flames near this helicopter please. We need it to-"

"Please board the aircraft and fasten your seatbelts to return to New York City."

"Yeah, what it said. I know I said I was getting cold, but I didn't want to get a second degree burn instead…" Sue finishes her sentence and climbs on board, trying to put on the seatbelt.

I follow her, and offer to help her. She smiles and nods. Johnny climbs in the back, refusing to put his seatbelt.

"Wow! There, Mount Rushmore, I don't think you fit in there!" he shouts as Ben tried to follow after him.

"Johnny-"

"Don't worry, Sue, I don't mind. And I'm sure it'll be fine, you'll just have to squeeze on the side a little bit. Huh, Matchstick?" he replies, and fits into the seat, even putting on his seatbelt. As mine clicks in as well, we close the door and wait for something to happen, when-

"Please board the aircraft and fasten your seatbelts to return to New York City."

"I don't understand, we boarded the helicopter…" says Sue, frowning. I think about it a bit while she looks for a button on the empty dashboard, when it clicks in my head.

"Johnny?"

"What?"

"Seatbelt."

"Are you serious? Turn the helicopter on instead of worrying about something like that. Man…"

"What is it, Stretch?"

"The computer told us to put on the seatbelts, what if that's the on button?" I ask.

"How stupid would that-" Johnny gets interrupted by the robotic voice.

"Please board the aircraft and fasten your seatbelts to return to New York City."

"Johnny, please. Just try it on." Sue asks him. He tsk-ed, before fastening his seatbelt. As soon as it connects, the helicopter turns on, the motor roars, and the blades start spinning.

"How long do you think-"

"Welcome aboard. The flight will take 3 hours and 43 minutes. It is currently Saturday the 30th, January 2010. The weather is clear for the trip. Unfortunately, no refreshments will be served, and you are asked to keep you seatbelts on at all times until the aircraft has landed. Thank you."

"Well that certainly answers some of my questions," I say. Intrigued to know if it's programmed to tell us that or if it recognized my question as I started asking it. "Who dropped us here?" I ask, only to be answered by the mechanical sounds of the blades turning at high speeds.

"We're flying too fast for it to be a regular helicopter." Ben says. "Whoever made that knew what he was doing. It's years from anything the military's been building."

"Not to mention that under four hours from an icy land to New York is ridiculous. How fast must we be going for it to be less than four hours?"

"If we were in Groenland, it would mean about 3000 km, so around 807 km/h, just under the theoretical maglev train's speed. It's a bit less than Mach 1." I answer, surprised at the speed of my inference and calculation, only to remember that the body that is now mine was still considered to be one of the smartest minds on the planet. It seems I inherited some of his smarts. I'll have to check how much later.

"Yeah, but that's still three or four time faster than the fastest helicopter in the world. I'll have to check what's under the hood when we arrive." Ben replies, clearly impressed with the aircraft.

"I'll take a look as well." Says Johnny, still as obsessed with speed as ever.

"In the meantime, I'll try to take some shuteye, wake me up when you see the coast please. Sue says, putting her head against my shoulder with a smile, and closing her eyes. As she falls asleep, I can't help but put a couple of rebel strands of hair that were falling over her face behind her ear, which triggers a small chuckle behind me. As I try to look without too much movement, I see Ben and Johnny looking in the opposite direction, with a smirk on their faces.

"Bastards, I'll get you for this." I think, while trying to get some rest as well. Three hours might not seem like much, but with nothing to do, it gets really boring, and I'm sure that once we touch down in New York, we won't be getting a lot of rest for a while…


	2. Chapter Two: Comeback!

"Stretch, Sue, Matchstick! Wake up you guys, we're almost there!" Ben bellows, waking us up extremely effectively, as we jump in our seat in surprise. "HAHAHAHA! I LOVE THIS! I've got to wake you all like that again sometime!" He says, as he transforms back into his human form.

"Please don't…" says Sue.

"Yeah, it would be a shame if you woke up in a burning bed, right, Captain Boulder?" Johnny retaliated.

"So you got it under control?" Sue asks, and Ben sighs, shaking his head.

"No, I need to stay focused to turn back, and as soon as I get emotional, I turn to stone."

"Guys, focus, we don't know what changed, it's been a week since the experiment, and we've gone missing ever since. Your dad should be scared, and could have contacted the authorities. If they touched that machine, it could be dangerous for everyone involved. Once we touch down, we'll need to get to the Baxter building to check everything out." I say, and I see Johnny and Sue's faces scrunch up in worry. Ben is stoic, but not saying anything.

As we pass by the Statue of Liberty, the helicopter slows down to a normal speed. Flying around the buildings, I try to see if I could make out anything that could help me figure out what kind of plotline we were entering. The helicopter seem to be taking us directly to the roof of the Baxter Building, who doesn't look any different from when we last saw it. Once it touches down, the automated voice speaks once more.

"Welcome to New York City. You can unfasten your seatbelts an leave the aircraft in a calm manner. Please check behind you to make sure that all your belongings are accounted for. Once you are out of the aircraft close the door behind you. Have a nice evening." As soon as the door closes behind us, the aircraft takes off and becomes invisible.

"So much for checking it out…" Johnny says, visibly disappointed, while Ben sighs. Susan is intrigued by how it became invisible, but quickly turns around and goes towards the roof entrance of the building.

"Come on guys, let's go." I say, asking them to follow after sue.

Once we get into the building, we notice a few things. First of all, it's empty. No one is there, the employees that used to roam the place are all gone, which put all of us on edge. Sue hurries, and goes to her father's office, with Johnny in toe. We follow after them. Bursting the door open, she shouts: "Dad! Dad!"

Her dad is half sitting on a chair, half lying on his desk. She shakes him. We hear "What? What! What do you want?" He wakes up, Sue hugs him and he sees us. "Oh my… Is this really you? Where were you? What happened to you? We all thought that you died like the others!"

"What? What others? Who died?"

"Well about three days ago, the machine turned itself on by itself, surcharging the generators and electrocuting three people, then the remaining pods all exploded except one, who opened up, and something flew out of it. No one got a good look at it, and the security cameras were down because of the generators." Welp, I think. There goes our first villain. Doom is still alive.

"We don't know, we woke up today somewhere in the arctic circle and only just came back."I say.

"Where is everyone? Why is it so empty here?"

"Well with your disappearance and the explosions after that, everyone resigned, no one want to work where people die or vanish… I'm not sure I'll be able to keep the building for long, with the bills accumulating, the insurance doesn't cover extra-dimensional deaths, all the scientists took their projects with them as they left and-"

"Dr. Storm, we're back. It's all right, we'll start again, no more dimension hopping for a while." I say, and he calms down a bit, giving in to his daughter's hug.

"I'm so glad you're back, baby girl… Johnny boy, come here too." he says, pulling Johnny into the hug. "Ben and Reed as well, I'm happy you're here."

"We have so much to tell you about dad', Sue says, once he frees her from his embrace, and proceeds to tell her about the experiment.

"Ben, if you would." I ask him, pointing outside the office and going out with him. "Let's leave that to them, we need to discuss a few things." I say, getting serious.

We walk in the empty hallways, towards the destroyed pods.

"Victor is still alive." I drop the bombshell, and I see him visibly shocked, and dropping his concentration, turning back into his rocky appearance.

"We need to get him!" he bellows.

"No need, he's out. He turned the machine on from the other dimension to escape. He's like us, now. I think he's the reason why the generator surcharged and the pods exploded. He probably thought we abandoned him and wanted revenge."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't know for sure, but it's highly probable. Something came out of his pod and destroyed ours. He got hit by the lightning storm out there, and the machines here surcharged and electrocuted people. That's too specific to be a coincidence. Once he hears we're back, he'll come for us. We need to be prepared, and for that, we can't be seen outside of the building until we're ready."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I need your help keeping Johnny here. If he learns about that, he'll probably do something stupid and reckless."

"Learn about what?" Johnny says, a smirk on his face.

"Dammit. It was supposed to be a surprise." I say, trying to shift his attention. "We were planning to build a flying car after seeing that helicopter, and gift it to you later." I say, looking at Ben, who nods at me in understanding.

"You? You're building a car?"

"No, I'll be working on gadgets to put in the car. Like some kind of repulsors."

"Like, to make it fly and shit?!" Johnny says, excited at the prospect of a flying car.

"Something like that," I said with a smile, happy to have derailed that conversation. "You want to work on it with us? Since you know about it, might as well use your talents."

"Who are you and what did you do to Reeds 'I work better alone' Richards?" He says, amused. "Hell yeah, I'm in!"

"Good, because we're going to be cooped up here for the duration of the project," says Ben, and Johnny looks as if betrayed. "The Baxter foundation needs a win, and this will be it, the return of the missing scientists, with a new product to put the accounts and public satisfaction in the green again." The younger Storm sibling seem to take all this in, thinks for a bit, and nods.

"Alright, but I'm keeping the first model, and I want flame paint on it."

I forgot about it, but no one here is legally adult yet. Sue and I are 19, Ben is 20, and Johnny is 17. Some of us might be geniuses, but we need an adult with us. We're fortunate Franklin, Sue's dad, is still here.

"I need to talk to Sue and Franklin about that. Can you guys start clearing out some space for the project? I'll come back as soon as I'm done." I say, and Johnny knocks his fist into his palm, turning to flames again. Fortunately, it seems the clothes we had on when we went to the other dimension adapted somewhat to our new physiology, as Johnny's and Ben's pants stayed on, while my top seems to be able to stretch somewhat. "We're going to need on some clothes for us as well, you can't keep burning shirts like that." I mutter, leaving the room.

For this, I know that I'm supposed to be able to create unstable molecules, but I'll try to see if I can find Spider-Man, to ask for his help. Unstable molecules inter-weaved with a derivation of his spiderweb formula might be one of the strongest and most resilient textiles to exist, so it could also help our funding. But for that, Spider-Man needs to exist, and while it's highly probable, with the spider-totem being a constant, Peter Parker is not. I'll have to check on that.

So many things to check on, so many things to invent, so little time.

As I return to Franklin's office, I hear Sue talking about the helicopter trip, it seems her retelling of the events is almost over.

"Mr. Richards!" Franklin yells. "Have you come to take responsibility for my daughter for forcing yourself on to her like that?!"

"What?!"

"Dad!"

"HAHAHA, your faces! Oh, don't worry, I'm kidding. Your feelings were obvious since you first saw her. If anything, I'm glad you took a plunge. Now, if you hurt her, I will kill you. But otherwise, have fun, and use protection." He says, leaving his office.

"DAD!" Sue yells, visibly embarrassed, before her face turns invisible.

"Dr. Franklin, we need to talk, it's important." I say, trying to fight the blush on my face. Franklin, seeing my look, understands that it's serious, and comes back in his office, closing the door behind him.

"What is it, son?" he asks, and I proceed to tell him about Victor, my plan to train our powers, to build defenses and a flying car, as well as the idea of unstable molecules. Sue, still shaken about Victor being alive, looks down, not speaking. Franklin is concentrated as well, his hand scratching his beard. "Well, that's a lot to take in." he says. "And you're correct, all of this is going to need some money, but the only thing I can do for now is sell old projects and machines, as by myself, I can't possibly do anything that will be able to sell, since you're supposedly dead. If I create anything, it will only attract some attention, so I'm afraid you're all going to have to tighten your belts for a while." and I nod at that. Sue only looks even more saddened by all of this.

"The priority is the understanding and control of our powers. Second comes the car, and third, the molecules. Once we have a good enough handle on ourselves, we should be able to restrain Victor. After that's done, the car should put us into the public eye again, and give us enough funding for the rest."

What I wasn't saying was how I planned to kill Victor, instead of sending him away or imprisoning him. I'm not as naive to think that he wouldn't try to kill us again and again if we give him the chance, and with his intellect and powers, he's very well capable of that. I'm hoping he's the only person I'll ever have to kill, but I have to be resigned to do the necessary to protect everyone.

For me, in this instant, it's not a comic-book, or a movie. This, right here, right now, is real life, with real consequences. I know reincarnation is real, but what would be the odds for me to re-reincarnate. I never learned how I died, and what made me able to go through reincarnation, so I can't be sure I'll have a third chance at this. I will not let this life be ruined because I didn't do what was necessary. And the safety of those I love or of innocents people come before my mental and moral well-being. If I have to sacrifice my moral compass this time to save my family in the future, that will be a small price to pay.

"I'm going to check what can be salvaged, I'll leave you two youngsters alone for a bit." Franklin sighs, and exits his office again.

"Susan, talk to me."

"Is it true? Is Victor alive? Why would he try to kill us?"

"I'm certain, but the only way to know is to show ourselves to the world. And I don't want to risk it just yet. And for him, we must have abandoned him, leaving him there to die while we escaped. You he might not kill, because he loves you, but he'll definitely try to hurt you to hurt me, before killing me. I don't think he cares too much about Ben or Johnny, but as an extension of the team that left him, he would want to kill them just for spiting him. He may be our age, but he was not educated like us. He is supposed to become the absolute ruler of Latveria when he's deemed worthy, or kill his predecessor. He was raised to never leave enemies a chance to comeback. He destroyed our pods, because they might have allowed us to come back like his did. I'm sorry, Sue. He's not the same anymore. His filter turned off when we escaped the storm." I say, and I see a couple of tears falling from her eyes.

"I know. I just wanted to be sure. She says. She looks up at me, and softly smiles. "But if you ever say that I'm only here so that you can be hurt, I'll show you hurt." And at this instant, her soft smiles scares me more than the possibility of fighting Doom.

"Yes, Madam. Sorry, Madam."

"Good, now. Let's get to work. She says, wipes the remaining tears, and stands up, heading for the door. "By the way, we need to talk about us, right? Because you never actually said anything about us…"

"We will. I-I mean… I will. I mean, will we? I want to, but do you want to? I mean, I'm not talking about that, that... but I do also want that- I mean, if you want that… I-I…"

"Hm… Well… I'd like- What? Yes, maybe… I'm not… I mean… WE'LL TALK LATER!" she shouts, and scurries out of the room, leaving me sweating in nervousness. Which makes me wonder if while my soul and memories carried over, the body might still prevail sometimes. For example in this case, hormones, or in the case of me lying, my right hand tapping against my leg, which is something this Reed Richards used to do before I came into the picture. It would somewhat explain why some characters in reincarnation stories that are depicted to be logical thinkers do stupid decisions on a whim.

But all of that is another matter entirely, and I see that Richards' brain tendency to think about three thousand things at once carried over as well…

So I go after her, and help everyone to clean the building, salvaging machines that can be sold, and in general tidying the place up, while talking about our plans for the future. Ben, Johnny and I will focus on the car, while Franklin will manage the funds, and Susan will take care of making training programs for our different sets of powers. Slowly, a sort of schedule is put in place, where in the morning, we will all work on the car, at noon, we'll eat together and discuss the previous day and afternoon to come, and in the afternoon, some will train while others have a free quarter, still locked in the building, though. The week-ends will be dedicated to people's personal interests. Be it training, research, leisure, or working on the car, it will be up to each one's decision.

And just like that, three months passed. The most happy advancement is my relationship with Susan. We're not yet sleeping in the same room all the time, but we do sometimes spend the night in each other's bedroom. Other than that, the car is taking shape, the repulsor work, but we'll need to find a power source, as it is pretty resource intensive. The theory for unstable molecules is mostly written down, so that will need funding to try out.

The training went well for everyone. Now, Ben spends most of his day in his rock form, and says he's happy that way. He can control himself to avoid changing to stone while in human form because of emotions, but came to like his default state.

Johnny can control his flames to a high degree, achieved flight, and even accessed a similar state as the Nova-Burst, although not to that degree just yet.

Sue can turn any part of her body invisible, and managed to turn outside elements invisible as well, although only for things she touches, and not a big surface just yet. She also learned how to use force-fields, shaping them a bit, and using a small force-platform to elevate herself, achieving a kind of levitation.

As for me, I have a lot of control over my elongation ability, and some degree of success with shape changing. My skin is now almost impervious to physical damage (up to which point is not known, yet, because we didn't try Ben's full force) such as blunt force, laceration or puncture.

We were sitting in the living room, chatting and eating pizza when the news broke. Tony Stark, missing for three months, is coming back to the United States. A whole wave of ideas comes to me, now that I know that while different, this timeline is concurrent or at least similar to the MCU, as I learned of the science experiment gone wrong of Dr Bruce Banner about five years ago.

The first idea, of course, is using Stark's Arc reactor to power the flying car, but it will only be palladium-free in the first semester of next year, so it would delay our plans a bit. It's able to lift off, and the theoretical speed is around 210 km/h with a 550 km range on the ground, and about 300km in the air. The range and speed are theoretical, since we can't use it outside the building. For now, it has a designed inspired by what Tesla made in my previous world, with the wing doors on the side. When I poached this idea, Sue had asked if it was necessary, as it would raise the price a bit, and Johnny and Ben responded immediately that it absolutely was.

For now it's electric, and powered by a huge battery, thus restricting the range quite a bit. If it was powered by the Arc reactor, the range wouldn't be a problem, and the car would be faster. We decided to work on it for two more months before calling a press conference.

Until then, Susan changed the training regime, from individual to team exercises. We either fight each other, or practice together, to improve our coordination.

So far everything is on the road, and I even managed to start a couple of small AIs to take care of a few things, including a bigger AI dedicated to cybersecurity, called Circe by Johnny (for Cyber Security: Cy-Se → Ci-Ce→ Circe, he was really proud of the name, so we let it slip). None of the AIs but Circe are connected to the internet. Circe is connected, but a lot of fail-safes have been implemented. Hopefully, we don't hear any reports from Circe, as it would mean someone is attacking her or us through her. The AI in charge of the others in the building is Alfred, and is programmed with an english accent. What? If Tony had one, I might as well copy both Jarvis and Batman's. He's in charge of making sure the AI work well, take our inquiries and relay them, and relays the results from the AIs to us.

Johnny asked me why I didn't make just one AI, and I answered that small, dedicated AIs were far less dangerous than a single AI whose purpose is undetermined or unclear. Plus, we didn't have a lot of room for the type of servers needed for big AIs. So we settled for multiple ones. I know that I'm playing a dangerous game, but I have algorithms in place monitoring each AI, their code, and the resources taken up by them. Since they aren't connected to the internet or to machines capable of creating other machines, I figured we were safe for a while. The only thing that could be dangerous would be Circe, as she's in charge of the cyber security of the building, could have access to the other AIs if she really wanted to. But as I've said, fail-safes are in place for multiple scenarios.

So we trained, researched, and overall just played around. Johnny turned 18, and Sue turned 20. For her birthday, I went out and shape-change my face to be incognito, so that I could buy her fresh flowers, and enough food to make a nice, romantic dinner between the two of us. It could have been ruined by my inability to cook, but Ben gave me a hand, and we managed to do something edible. I promised him something so that he could browse the internet with his rock form, and he seemed happy with that promise. I think Sue cried a bit when she saw the fresh flowers, but I can't be certain because she turned invisible. It once more strengthened my resolve to out ourselves so that we can live norm- 'Normal' lives again. She decided to move into my room, and who would I be to dissuade her. So there's that.

Two months later, at the Baxter building, a lot of journalists and influential people were present for the press conference. Backstage, we were all dressed smartly, suit and ties, except Sue, who had a lovely dress, and Franklin was re-reading his notes for the umpteenth time today.

"Dad, it's going to be alright. You've got this." Sue told him, her hand softly caressing his shoulder.

"Yeah, it's no big deal, dad. There's only like a hundred journalists and cameras out there, it's fine." Johnny said, and Ben facepalmed.

"Don't listen to him, it's not your first press conference. It's almost time, dad. Breathe."

"Dr. Franklin, they are ready for you."

"Thank you Alfred. Well, kids, wish me luck," he said, going on stage. The journalists stopped talking, and Frank scraped his throat. "Ladies and gentleman. Thank you for coming. I called this conference for two reasons. Since the failed experiments a few months ago, the disappearance of my family and friends, and at a later date the explosion in this building, myself and a team of scientists managed to create something new, and groundbreaking here at the Baxter foundation. But before telling you about it, I would like to present you this team. Ladies and Gentleman, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Benjamin Grimm and Johnny Storm."


	3. Chapter Three: Open for Business?

With that revelation, a number of journalists realize what the names mean and get agitated, some calling up their boss, others getting ready to take serious notes. A few of the more clueless journalists ask questions to others, who then become excited too. Frank holds the microphone and tries to regain their attention. "People, please, everything will be explained to you in a second. Do try to be civilized and keep the noise to a minimum." Saying that, the four of us walk to the scene, behind Frank, and he shows me to the podium, telling me, "Your responsibility now, son. Good Luck."

"Good evening, Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Reed Richards. I was one of the main scientists working on a project a few weeks ago, who backfired, sending us to another dimensions for a few weeks. We came back relatively unscathed, and learned of the state of the Baxter foundation, so we took it upon ourselves to make a bankable project to put the foundation in the green once more. Without further ado, I am pleased to present to you tonight, the Fantasti-car!" With that, the curtain behind us opens up on a red car with flames on the side, hovering just above the ground without a sound. Johnny, all smiles, takes the key from my hands, presses it, and the car descends. He presses it again, and the driver door opens for him. He climbs, closes the door, and start the car, hovering over the ground before levitating just above the podium. I see him in the car looking at me, asking me with his eyes if he can take it for a spin. I look at Sue, and she nods, so I do as well.

Johnny grins, and the car roars, flying through the windows Alfred opened up as soon as Johnny entered the car. With the multiple cameras on board, a projector screen pops up behind me so that the journalists are able to follow it through the city while I continue my presentation.

"This is the first generation Fantasti-car, with a theoretical speed around 210 km/h and a 550 km range on the ground, about 300km in the air. These numbers are theoretical at the moment, but further actual testing will be done in a few weeks. The car is entirely electric, and this one was charged by solar energy. At the moment, it can be charged through a regular wall outlet, but once production really starts, we are hoping to create a network of electric superchargers around the world." I realize that I'm totally ripping off Tesla's strategy, but if it works for them, it'll work for me. "This network will also be open-source, so that other car companies aiming to build electric vehicles will be able to charge them in the supercharger stations as well."

On the screen, renderings of supercharger stations popping up around the world are depicted, as well as all the statistics calculated by computers.

"As you can see, our test pilot and Automobile Mechanical Director Johnny Storm is pushing the car to its limit in the air, without any strain visible on the car. Obviously, we understand that a set of rules for driving in the air will have to be put in place, but at the moment, when the car will be launched, the Air driving will be automated, no driver will be able to take the wheel and crash into a building. Johnny if you would please engage the auto-pilot and return."

Johnny's smile fades a bit, but he still has a grin on his face, appreciating the ride home while seated on the passenger seat.

"An infrastructure project is planned, where instead of parking, the driver will lead the car to a specific building, and once the car "parks", the driver will indicate his destination. As the destination is imputed and the car recognizes that "parking" space as a lift off point, the car will take off, and engage the automated air driving. "Air tunnels" will be programmed, in which the cars will be, just like a road, with several lanes on each side. Since the car is electric, it won't emit neither nefarious gases nor noise pollution, keeping our streets clean of bad air and sounds. We understand that this is a huge undertaking, but we are hoping to sell not the car ourselves, but to other companies. All related softwares and infrastructure plans will be sold as one batch. In other words, we are selling a finished product so that another company may build it, produce it, and sell it. At Baxter foundation, we lack everything to do any of it, so the funds from the sale will allow us to start again. This sale will be a bid, organized at a later date by a fair and impartial third party. If you have any questions, regarding us, the car or something in relation to it, I will have to ask you to send them by e-mail at inquiry with the subject being "PressJune2010". You should receive an answer within minutes. Thank you very much, and see you later."

With that, I leave the podium, followed by Ben, Franklin and Sue. Johnny and the car came back through the window and behind the closing curtains as I finished my speech. The journalists erupt in questions, but none of us look at them, choosing to escape instead of anything.

I gave an AI all the information concerning our adventure in Dimension Zero, as we decided to dub it, as well as everything concerning the car and infrastructure. I then opened up an email receiving and sending box, so that the only thing the AI can do is read, write, and send the email. The delay between the arrival of the question and the answer is less than a second, but to make sure that the AI does not send anything weird, a dozen of algorithms check the outgoing mail before allowing it to leave the building.

"That was amazing, Reed! Look! I have goosebumps!" Says Sue, excited by the presentation.

"Yeah, stretch, it was something alright." Ben manages, before transforming. "Oh damn, I couldn't hold it anymore, you have no idea how stressful that was for me to focus on my form while you were there, blowing everyone's mind."

"Do you know how stressed I was? Look!" I say, putting my right hand forward, with it shaking a lot. "If I had to stay one more second, I would have pissed myself!"

"Hahahaha! That was Insane! I loved it! I'm going to name her Lola!"

"It's taken already." I reply to Johnny, still exhilarated from his outing.

"What do you mean taken?"

"I mean that a red flying car has already been named Lola before."

"How is that possible?" asks Ben.

"Well, Howard Stark, in one of his Stark Expo showed off the model. It didn't work perfectly, but someone made it work later, I just don't know who or where it is."

"What about Firefly?" at that, my inner Whedon fan drops a tear.

"I think that it's free…"

"Firefly it is, then! Whoop whoop!"

"So, what now?" asks Franklin.

"Now you hide, and we prepare for war. Sooner or later, the news will reach Latveria and you know who." I say, and everyone's except Johnny's faces become a lot more serious.

"Wait what? What do you mean, war?"

"Sorry, Johnny, I hid something from you. Victor is probably still alive." and I proceed to tell him everything. He looks in turn shocked, excited, worried and finally betrayed.

"Why didn't you tell me!?"

"Because you were not ready yet, we hid for six months because none of us were. Now we are. Now we can-"

"Why didn't you tell me? ME!? Everyone else seems to know, why not me?"

"Because you're the youngest, hotblooded and are prone to immature reactions. We couldn't make sure that you wouldn't have gone to the dimension yourself, or went to Latveria to talk and or fight him." Ben says, harshly.

Ben looks at Franklin, who looks down, at Sue, who does the same, and finally back at me. I look into his eyes, without diverting my gaze. "It's harshly put, but it was the truth when we came back. Now all of us have changed, and I'm hoping for you to have changed as well. What will you do? I would understand it if you want to leave, but I'll ask you to wait until Victor is taken care of before you do, because the five of us are a family, and we'll need you for what's to come. Hate me if you must, as I'm the one who made the decision to keep it from you, but don't scorn them. They did what they thought was best to protect you, even if you feel that you didn't need protecting. I want you to-"

"Sir. Circe informed me that she is under attack from powerful computers based in Eastern Europe. She told me she could hold them off, but that the attacks contain an unknown element. She is requesting access to more processing power to fight it off." Fucking Magic. I forgot that Doom could add magic to his damned cyber attacks.

"Engage defenses protocols to Defcon 2. Reduce every AIs' but the mailbot's consumption down 20% and allocate it all to Circe. Keep me informed of the state of affairs. Ask the journalists still in the building to evacuate, state a fire drill or something like that."

"Yes, Sir. I have an agent Coulson in the building, asking to speak to you or Dr. Franklin."

"I'll talk to him. Send him to my office, tell him I'll be there shortly." I look to everyone, visibly worried. "This is just a prelude. Knowing him, he's just testing the waters. The first wave of attack. The second wave should be robots. He was already working on them when we left, and with his newfound powers, he seems to be more adept at technology. Johnny, I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have you to make a choice."

"I'll fight. And then we'll talk again." He says, before flaming off and flying to his floor.

"Sue?" I ask.

"I'll talk to him."

Ben looks at me and says "I'll escort Dr. Franklin out, and come back as soon as I can."

"Thank you," I say, before heading to my office for a much awaited conversation. Stepping through the door, I see him seated just in front of my office, with a small smile on his face. Hearing me come in, he rises and holds his hand out. "Mr. Coulson, right? I'm Reed Richards. You wanted to see me." I shake his hand and sit in my chair.

"Agent Coulson, yes, and I did. I hope I'm not interrupting anything, I heard about a fire drill. Is everything okay?"

"If I'm being honest, it's a difficult conversation. Who did you say you worked for already?"

"I didn't. I work for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. It's a bit of a mouthful, we're working on a shorter name."

"Huh-huh. And what is it that you do exactly there?"

"We're a special Law Enforcement agency, think CIA or FBI but with a more focused field of action. I'm here to debrief you about the term of your dimensional travel and subsequent power bestowal."

"Wow you are really well-informed about that. How did you hear about it?"

"We have our sources. Now, if you could answer my questions, please."

"Sure, go ahead."

"Is it correct to assume that all four of you, being Reed Richards, Susan and Johnny Storm as well as Benjamin Grimm got powers from your trip?"

"Not entirely. We have reasons to believe that the fifth member of our trip also got his share of powers. Victor von Doom, heir apparent to the crown of Latveria metaphorically speaking."

"I was not informed that he came back with you?"

"He didn't. During our trip, he was the first affected by the cosmic storm, and disappeared from our view. We got affected while we got into our pods. When we came to, we found ourselves in rooms in a small building in the Arctic Circle. He apparently found a way back different from ours. He is allegedly responsible for the subsequent death of four scientists during the incident a few months ago."

"What do you mean, allegedly?"

"That until now, we don't have proof that he's still alive, but that in a few hours, we should. A cyber attack on us is ongoing, as we speak, from an Eastern European country, probably Latveria. I would advise the evacuation of the surrounding buildings, as the Baxter building might become a battlefield soon." I say to the agent, who apparently is struggling to maintain a poker face. "Other than that, it is correct to assume that yes, the four of us also got powers as well."

"Are you positive that an attack is iminent? Do you have proof?"

"Alfred?" I ask, seemingly to the air.

"Sir, no attacks have been detected on the building beside the cyber attack yet, but based on the behavioral analysis of Victor Von Doom, retaliation in the form of a physical attack against this building is 87% probable."

"Alfred? Are you Jarvis' brother? Why wouldn't you answer me while I came up here?"

"Sir? Who is Jarvis?"

"Tony Stark's AI?"

"No Sir, I believe not. I was created by Mr. Richards here. I cannot answer inquiries from the public in the absence of any of my masters."

"Agent Coulson, can I call you Coulson, or do you prefer Agent? Do you have any other questions, otherwise I'd like to prepare my defenses against Doom."

"I'd prefer Agent Coulson. And not for the moment, though I'd like to talk to you again once this "battle" is done. If your AI could contact me, I'd appreciate it."

"I'm sorry Sir, I'm not connected to the outside world."

"Yup, like he said. Do you have a card or something, I'll try to call you when it's over. But please, try to evacuate the surrounding buildings. Since we already used a fire drill alarm, you would just have to claim a gas leak or something to evacuate without creating too much panic." I say, rising to my feet and holding my hand out.

"I'll be sure to do that. Here's my card," he says, shaking my hand and pulling a card from his pocket, and putting it on my desk. "A pleasure to speak with you. I won't take up any more of your time. I'm sure Alfred can guide me out." He concludes, leaving my office.

"Alfred, talk to me."

"Sir, Circe says she's twenty minutes away from completely suppressing the attack, and says that she isolated the unknown element in the code of the attackers. She says that learning and using it could potentially boost her capacity by 47% while decreasing her consumption by 66%."

"Declined, when the attack is over, send it to a virtual black box for analysis, and purge her systems from it. Anything else?"

"Mr. Grimm came back and is en route to the living room. Ms. Storm and Mr. Storm are still in Mr. Storm's room."

"Got it. If any of them come out, tell them to come to the living room. In the meantime, once Coulson has left, lock the building down and focus on threat detection. Prepare to shut down all non-essential AIs for the duration of the fight as soon as it starts, to allocate their powers to defense. Same for Circe, once the cyber attack is over, purge her form the unknown elements as quickly as possible and allocate 10% power consumption more for her. I'm going to the living room, light it up as a panic room with all essential information screens." I say, leaving my office.

This is it, as a wise man once said, that's the endgame. Doom is coming, and I hope I'm not underestimating him. I already made the mistake of forgetting about his cyber-magic, let's hope that's the last mistake I'll make.

I prepared a few laser defenses, hard wired into the building, so unless they find an entry point, they won't be able to hack them. I also added a few things against robots, such as powerful magnets in different floors, as well as electrifying said floors. I had a program prepared that hacked into different intelligence communication networks, but the only thing I programmed it to do was to give me an access. This access was then passed to an AI specialised in analysing, decoding and interpreting the messages passing around those networks. In theory, with the list of criteria I gave it, it should warn Alfred when one or more of the items on this list is talked about. I should hear news about Latveria pretty fast if he plans to move.

I really hope SHIELD will listen to my warning and evacuate around us, because it would be a terrible start for the Fantastic Four. Then again, helping the people out of destroyed buildings if we win against Doom would make for good publicity, but if we can avoid civilian casualties like so, why wouldn't we?

"Sir, lockdown is now in effect, and a number of UAVs left the Latverian airspace about a minute ago. Their ETA is 9 hours and 45 minutes." Good, everything worked out. But I'm pretty sure Victor 'Magic' Von Doom would launch an attack that would only show results 10 hours later.

"Probably not. Act like they'll be here in less than an hour, prepare as such. Relay the message to the team, but leave the ETA out. Tell them to meet me in the living room as soon as possible. Oh, and Alfred?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Defcon One. From now on, this is war."


	4. Chapter Four: War

As I arrive in the living room turned control room, Ben looks at the screens with a determined gaze. Johnny and Sue come in at the same time, just after me. They look at me, with grave expressions. They nod at me, and go check on the screens. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and follow them.

While everyone check on the defenses, no one speaks, this stressful atmosphere deepening by the minute, as we have no news whatsoever. Two minutes ago, the UAVs that left Latveria suddenly disappeared from all radars, making my assumption more than real, so I asked the AI to focus on the North American airspace.

In other news, it appears someone at SHIELD took my warning seriously, and evacuation started in the neighboring buildings.

Like that, waiting for news, another twenty minutes pass. And then, "Sir, UAVs started appearing over the Atlantic airspace. ETA six minutes."

"Do you have visual?" Ben asks.

"Visual in two minutes. Evacuation of the surroundings should be done in three minutes. The authorities are saying that a Mr. Fury pushed for it."

"Keep us informed. Once you have visual, put it up on the large screen. I want to see what we'll be fighting against." I say. So, Fury believed me, that's good. Or at least believed that I was a threat and prepared for my capture.

"Yes, Sir."

"Guys, I'm sorry about all of this, I should have put redundancies in the pods. None of that would have happened if I did."

"It's alright, we were a part of it. If anything, we all share responsibility for leaving Victor there." Sue says, putting a hand on my shoulder. I put her hand in mine, and kiss it, closing my eyes.

"Thank you. Now is your last chance, you can still go to the parking lot underground, it should be safe enough."

"Oh you better believe we're fighting, stretch. All of us are in this together. Right, matchstick?"

"For sure, pebbleman. I wouldn't dream of a better evening, fighting flying robots sent by a man named Doom? That's what I'm talking about."

"I'm here to make sure none of you screw up. You can't send me away anymore."

"I love you." I say, hugging her.

"I know." she answers, reciprocating the hug.

"Yeah, we do," Ben says, joining the hug in his rock form. "Hey come here you too!" Ben hollers, pulling Johnny in the group hug. We all laugh a bit, until…

"Pardon me, but we have visual. 22 Robots are arriving in four minutes."

"Let's kick his ass!" shouts Johnny, followed by all of us, repeating that.

"LET'S KICK HIS ASS!" With that, we turn to the large screen, showing pictures of the robots from different angles, as well as a number tally on the upper right corner.

"Okay, as soon as more than two touch the building, electrify it. Let's see how the respond to that. After, you'll open up floor 12, 13 and 14's blinds and windows and power up the magnets when two robots passed the floor. We'll take care of the remnants in floor 15, as a group. Act as if those robots have cameras implanted in them, and that Doom can see us. Try to keep your abilities as a surprise as much as possible. You won't be able to hide your power, but do keep a few aces up your sleeves. I know it will make it harder, but it's better to have something that Doom won't know about. Alfred, I want you to keep track of every robot and robot parts that land around here. Once the 22 robots are down, tell us where to find them so that we can assemble them in a big pile and burn it down to kingdom come. He was able to activate his pod remotely from another dimension, let's not give him any opportunity with those robots. All clear? Any questions?"

"Can I at least keep one of them to study?" Johnny asks, while we go down to the 15th floor.

"I would love to as well, but unfortunately, Doom is to be taken extremely seriously, and if I thought of using them as spies that can be reactivated remotely, he will definitely have as well. Sorry Johnny."

"Evacuation is over, the authorities have sent a military convoy to keep the line. ETA one minute." Alfred reports.

"Well, let's put on our mean faces, and get ready for some action." As soon as I say that, the elevator's doors open, and a screen shows three robots latch onto the building, get electrocuted, and fall down to the street, unresponsive. Another three pull back, hovering, and start shooting the building, until one of them notices the open windows. Five enter on the 12th floor, with two of them stuck and electrocuted by the magnet. The same thing happens simultaneously on the 13th and 14th floor, but with only one robot on 13 and three on 14.

The robot that was caught by the magnet on the 13th floor detonated, destroying the magnet with him. The rest of the horde go through that floor, now that it's magnet-free.

We stand together in the middle of the room, looking at the elevator shaft and the staircase, waiting for them to climb to our position. One of them does, and like I asked him to, Alfred holds back the lasers until the bot is almost on us. The lasers destroy it mid-flight, and the rest of the robots now know where we are.

Five bots pop out of the elevator shaft, and it's like a Star Wars scene, with the bots shooting at us, Sue putting up a small psionic shield, the lasers retaliating, and a firefight starts between the two sides. After thirty seconds, the fight is over, the five that came up destroyed, but we only have two functioning laser turret left, with one defective, as it shoots slower than its counterpart.

The seven remaining robots all come together from both the elevator shaft and the staircase, and immediately destroy our lasers. They surround us, and we hear Victor Von Doom's voice from their speakers.

"So I was right. You have powers as well. What are they? Ben's looking like a rock, I assume strength and durability. I saw some sort of shield coming from Sue, maybe some kind of telekinesis. What about you Reed? What powers made you abandon me? What price was low enough that you decided on trading my life for?"

"We thought you were dead!" Sue shouts, but to no avail.

"Did you? Did you check on me before escaping like the cowards that you are?! Did you look for me?! Did you try to come back for me after escaping?! I think not! I was hurt, hungry, angry! I was stranded in another dimension all by myself, with only my wits to fight my way to survival. What did you do? You escaped, and built a fucking car!"

"It's not like that…" Sue tries to argue.

"Victor, it's not too late for you, yet. You can still work with us. Ben has his appearance under control, whatever power you got from the storm, we can help you control it. If you attack us, you might go to prison. We won't be able to help you there." I try to say.

"Prison? PRISON? HAHAHAHAHA! You think a mere cage will hold Doom! It's too late for that Reed! It's too late for that." He says, and the bots attack.

Two of them ram themselves against Sue's shield, pushing hard against it. She holds strong, though visibly struggling to keep it up, but blood starts dripping from her nose. "I can't hold it for long! Johnny!"

"FLAME ON!" Johnny shouts, turning itself into flames, preparing powerful fireballs in each of his hands, and shooting them towards the bots as soon as Sue releases her forcefield. The robots burst into flame and fall to the ground, with parts of them melting.

Ben goes against a robot, trying to fight it in a boxing match. The robot doesn't damage him in the slightest, despite the heavy suppressive fire.

I protect Sue, just the time for her to take a breath and turn invisible. As soon as she is completely out of my sight, I catch a downed robot on the ground. I use my hand and arm as a sling, chucking it at high speed against another one, before Johnny pins it to the ground and punches it repeatedly, while still being on fire.

Finally, Ben manages to hit his robot, disorienting it long enough to fight it in close quarters. One of his punches pass through the robot, but it still shoots towards Ben. Ben keeps it at a literal arm's length and cocks his left punch, before shouting his famous one liner: "IT'S CLOBBERIN TIME" and punching it straight in the head, detaching it from the rest of its body.

"Really?! Clobberin time?!" Johnny says, still punching the moving robot under him, before deciding it was enough and heating up his right hand against the robot, melting its armor, passing through it, and melting the interior of it.

A robot flies above my head, and I feel someone stepping on me, but I don't see anyone, so I push myself to grow tall enough, and the robot falters a bit, like something just landed on it. After a few seconds, cables get ripped off of it, and the robot crashes towards the ground, before exploding from the inside, as if a small object appeared in its interior.

"Ben!" I shout. "Slingshot!" I say, as I catch two sides of the building, and Ben runs towards me. He picks up a downed robot, puts it in front of me, and pulls me back, creating a human slingshot. He aims towards one of the two flying robots left, and let go of me. My body is launched, and the piece of scrap that was in front of me flies off, coming into contact with another robot, creating a small explosion.

Sue reappears, and holds the last robot in a force field. "You don't get to attack my family, Victor- no. Doom. I thought we were friends, but it turns out you're just obsessed. If you hadn't destroyed our pods, we would have looked for you. If you hadn't killed those innocent people, we could have helped you. But today, you crossed a line. Try and fight us again, and we will stop you." As she says that, she closes her fist, the forcefield compresses and with it, the robot. When it looks like a crushed can, she releases her fist, and falls to her knees.

I go to her, take her into my arms. "It's over, we won." I say, caressing her back, as I feel her slowly losing her force. "We won. Go get some rest, Sue, you deserve it." I whisper, rising to my feet, carrying her in my arms. "Guys, I'll meet you in a bit." I tell them, walking to my room to put her to sleep.

When I come back Johnny is pushing all the robots parts on this floor towards one big pile, and Ben is nowhere to be seen. "Johnny, you're good here?" I ask him.

"I -huh… I'm sorry, Reed."

"What?" I say, surprised by this turn of events.

"I mean, I understand why you didn't tell me about him. I would definitely have done something stupid, and those robots are the real deal. I could have been killed if not for you."

"Wow- I… I don't know what to say… I was asking about the floor, if you needed help, but I'll take this." He gets embarrassed. "Thank you, Johnny. It means a lot to me." I tell him, pulling him in for a hug. "And I'm sorry as well, I won't hide anything from you again. Except for birthday and christmas presents. That will stay a secret until the last minute."

"Don't think that an apology is enough. I want unlimited pizzas, from your bank account. I'll make you pay for this and for stealing my sister." He says, turning away quickly to return to work, hiding his face from me, but a bit too fast, as a tear falls from the sudden movement. I say nothing about it, and go check on Ben.

"Alfred, anything to report?"

"No, Sir. Not directly towards the building."

"What do you mean?"

"An insurrection started in Latveria, with Victor Von Doom at the helm. It seems he is planning on becoming the ruler of Latveria."

"And thus, getting diplomatic immunity. That's why he said it was too late for prison."

"I believe this to be the case. In other news, the 12th, 13th and 14h floor have been quarantined, waiting for Mr. Storm to burn the remaining robots. Mr. Grim is outside, guarding the robots that fell out of the Baxter building. I asked to do so, as the military have received the order to check on what was happening. You should probably head over there as well, Sir."

"Good idea. Ask Johnny to come down as soon as he's done with the 15th floor. Mind opening the window for me, since the elevator is down?"

"Of course, Sir." I jump, and let me fall for a couple of seconds before relaxing my form to become a human parachute, slowing down enough to just put my feet to the ground like I hadn't jumped from the 15th floor of a building.

"Show-off." Ben says, in his human form, with a smirk on his face.

"I mean, I didn't punch a robot's head off, so I don't know what you're talking about." I answer, with my own smirk.

"What the hell is this sh*t?" we turn to look at someone hunched over the robots, in a black overcoat.

"That's a pile of scraps waiting to be destroyed. If you could please put back whatever is it that you stole before announcing yourself to us to appear more mysterious, it would be appreciated. The technology in there is mixed in with some nasty unknown stuff, that allows its creator to access it remotely, from wherever in the world. So if you don't want whatever spy company is it you work for to have all of its secrets spilled to a nefarious individual, I would advise you to let it be destroyed here." I say, walking towards him, with Ben in tow, slowly transforming into The Thing.

"I'm the director of SHIELD. Nick Fury. Who are you punk that you think you can threaten me like that?" He says, turning around. And the man, the legend, the eyepatch, glares at me.

"I think you know exactly who we are, and you know exactly what transpired here tonight, thanks to the little bug your agent planted on my sleeve this afternoon." I want to say he's surprised, but since only one eyebrow is visible, it's probable that he's only mildly curious at what I said. "Someone ever told you that you looked like Samuel L. Jackson?"

"Yes. Multiple times. Now, what makes me so sure that you want to destroy this, and not keep it for yourself?" As he says that, Johnny flies down in flame, to us.

"Hey, what's up eyepatch? Reed, the bots on the 15th floor are all molten goo. Alfred told me to destroy the ones here before the other floors, is there something wrong?" I look Fury in the eyes, and we hold the contest for a few seconds, without saying anything, until he sighs, and pulls out an eye, a finger and part of a circuit board from his pockets, and putting them on the pile of scraps.

"Nope, we're all good here, burn as you like." I say, smirking, while Ben just laughs a bit.

Johnny melts everything down, while I go talk to Fury on the side.

"You know, Doom is probably going to win his insurrection, right?" I say.

"He already did. Two minutes ago. You're a bit late on the uptake, kid."

"Sure, let's go with that." I answer, snorting. "What do you want Fury? If it was just his technology, you would have left before we knew we were here." And with that question, his famous recruitment speech starts.

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."

"Sounds like a fire mixtape."

"The hottest. Now, can I say my piece, or are you going to continue-"

"Interrupting you? I promise I won't anymore." I say, with a smirk, while I see him gnashing his teeth.

"Your intellect put you on our radar first. Then the Dimensional cluste*ck happened too fast, and we couldn't get to you before it happened. Then your powers, but since you hid yourselves from the world, we didn't know for sure. With this, we do. This world is bigger than you imagine. Aliens, powers, whatever. And we need a team to defend this world against otherworldly threats.

We already have several members in mind, and you are part of them. What do you say?"

"I say, we need to discuss about it more between ourselves, with my family. But that if a threat shows itself, we won't stay idle. What do we gain from joining your little boys band?"

"Resources that your foundation needs right now, talents working with you, and training. You're still young, and the fact that I managed to steal from under your noses shows you're not 100% ready. And of course, official recognition for your services to this country."

"We'll think about it. How do I contact you?"

"You don't. I will. Goodnight, Mr. Richards." he says, melting into the shadows.

"He's got to have powers." I grumble, returning to my team for a debrief, and a most needed rest...


	5. Chapter Five: Newfound Knowledge

"So what do we do now?" Ben asks me.

"I mean, right now I don't know about you but I want to sleep. Later, we'll clean up the rest of Doom's robots, and repair what's broken."

"I meant about hiring scientists. That's the third incident in the building, no one would be crazy enough to come work for us. Even if you call it a gas leak, there's no way everyone would believe it…"

"Sh*t, you're right… I don't know for now, like I told you, I'm a bit tired, and a good sleep will help me think better. I'm gonna go, see you later Ben…" I say, going to my room. Arrived there, I take off my shoes and lie on the bed, taking Sue in my arms and falling asleep.

« — I am Iron Man. — An ant has no quarrel with a boot. — On your left. — Star-Lord, man. Legendary outlaw. — You didn't see that coming? — Baskin Robbins always finds out. — We don't get to choose our time. — I'm exercising my blood right to challenge for the mantles of King and Black Panther. — Oh, my God. The hammer pulled you off? — I'm so touched you think I'm the World's Greatest Grandma. — Hear me, and rejoice. — »

*Gasps* I wake up, sweating, look around in the dark, trying to find where I am and what happened.

"Reed, Reed, are you okay?" I hear, feeling a hand on my back. I turn around, and see Susan, still in her dirty clothes from the fight last evening. "It's alright," she says, "it was just a nightmare. You're alright now." She whispers, pulling me in for a hug. I can't possibly tell her that it wasn't a nightmare, can I? But it would, for sure, help out a lot.

What I saw was the entire MCU timeline accelerated, but with a few changes here and there, maybe to accomodate for the Baxter Foundation's presence. One of the changes was that Captain America was found and thawed from the ice a bit sooner. Of course, I wasn't in any of those accelerated ...memories?, but things are different than what is known as Earth-199999. Now that I'm here, things are going to deviate a lot from what I know, since I fully intend to change the future.

"I-I… I think I just saw the future." I tell her. "The cosmic storm, perhaps. I'm not entirely sure."

"What did you see? No - wait. Don't tell me. Or can you tell me? How does that work?"

"Well, I think that since I know, and intend to change things, it doesn't matter if you know a few things as well, right? I hope?"

"I'm going to take a shower, tell Alfred everything you can remember, and then you'll tell me what I need to know. After you're done, take a shower as well." she says, scrunching her nose when passing by me.

"Alfred, prepare to take some notes, there's a lot of intel coming."

"Ready, Sir."

"Create folders for each event. Call the first one 'Iron Man'"

"Iron Man, Sir?" I detect some disdain for my naming sense, but I'm too tired to care.

"Just do it…"

Fifty minutes later, I went to take a shower as per ordered by the mistress. After said shower, we talked about a few events that were really important in my mind, but I left out Thanos and the snap. I didn't want to overwhelm her, especially since I know that I won't be able to prevent it easily, or know who will be gone...

"There might be a lot of variations, since we know about some events, but it would probably follow this timeline to an extent, I think." After a moment thinking to herself, she looks at me.

"We could help Stark, right?" Sue asked. "I mean, since we know he's going to get palladium poisoning, there has to be something we can do?"

"Well, he's going to find a new element to replace Palladium in his reactor, which will cure him, so-"

"Yes, I know, I wanted to say that we can lessen his symptoms and make him owe us one. We could use an oxidiser and…. I'm going to check it out." She said, storming off. I know that she's a bit put off by all the information I dumped on her, and research helps her focus on one thing and not overthink the rest. Even if I remembered what Fury used on Tony, I don't think telling her that would help her. I think she needs a bit of time.

For my part I went to find the team to inform them about a few key events, so that we're all prepared. The big event to come being the Chitauri invasion, which we can't realistically prevent by ourselves.

"What can we do if we can't prevent the portal from opening?" Ben asks.

"I'll burn everything coming down from that wormhole. I'll burn them to cinders," Johnny says.

"Well, we need to make a number of plans, but the most important thing to do is train. I'm sorry to say that, but at the moment we won't be of much help. Johnny, your flames are hot enough, but if you can't hold them for long enough, it won't matter. So we need training. The thing is I'm a bit scared that the training provided by SHIELD will be exchanged against using us as weapons on Hydra's battlefields."

"Why not ask Fury to put us off his database and that the person training us must be Captain America? There's little risk that he'll be Hydra, right?" Ben proposes.

"And we can add that we won't leave New York, so that at least if we are sent somewhere, we know it won't be on an actual battlefield." Johnny says.

"I hadn't thought of that." I say, impressed.

"We're a team for a reason you know." Ben smiles.

"I'll try to negotiate with the superspy then…"

"Oh! Oh! Hey! Ask him if he can send a hottie to train us as well. You know, to resist temptation and shit." I grin, and can't help but think about Black Widow, she would most probably definitely eat him alive, when he inevitably flirts with her.

"I'll ask. No promises." Hiding my smile from Johnny is probably the hardest thing I've done all day. "In the meantime, we should do this everyday, talking about our problems and interrogations, so that others can give their points of view, and help you out if possible. How about during lunchtime?" I ask, and the nod. "Great. I'll go see Fury, talk to you guys later."

Alfred informed me that a lot of the questions we received by mail was to know if the car was actually real and working, or if it was just a publicity stunt, so I decided to take it for a spin to talk to SHIELD. Starting it up, I flew out of the building, low enough so that people see it, but high enough that the repulsors don't do anything bad. I mean, even if we have limiters and a power dampener on them, they create a bit of wind and warmth. Not high enough to burn anything, but it could cause concern to the uninformed passerby, so let's avoid that.

The effect is immediate, with people looking up and shouting about a flying car, so that "publicity stunt" mark should go away pretty soon. The set of laws we proposed hasn't been adopted yet, since the car isn't commercially available, so technically, I'm not breaking any traffic/air rules.

Seeing the Triskelion building from a distance, I figured that I'd better put the car down, or they'll be likely to put it down themselves. So I take to the road and do the last stretch like in a normal car. Arriving at the security checkpoint, I thought I would be inspected, but instead the guard looks at me and asks me to open my window.

"Director Fury is waiting for you. There's a parking on your right at the end of the bridge. Take a pass at the entry desk before you go any farther in the building, or you may get escorted out." With that, he opens the barrier, and I pass through. Following his instruction, I park Johnny's car, and go to the office desk just by the entrance. Again, I don't have to say anything before a woman hands me a badge.

"Hello, Mr. Richards, Director Fury is expecting you. Put this badge on or you will be seen as a liability," She looked at me to add in her mind 'and shot to kill', before continuing. "Stephany here will escort you to the Director's office. Please follow her, and do not wander around. Have a good day" she says, as I put on the badge on.

"Hello, I'm Stephany. I'll be taking you to the Director." she says, and starts walking. "In the security booth, you'll be asked to leave any electronic device in a basket, which you'll be able to take back once you'll leave. Weapons are prohibited to that point to non personnel or guests. If you carry one, you'll be asked to inform the security officer that will check you before he does so. Please tell him what weapon you carry, and where you carry it, and do not try to take it out, he will take care of that. If you do try, it will be interpreted as an attack, and you will be apprehended. Do you understand?"

"I do. I don't have any weapons."

"Good. If you …" and she continues listing all restrictions accompanying my quality of guest until we arrive at the security booth, a huge wall with X-Ray machines, metal detectors and a number of patrol guards. Leaving my phone and car keys, I pass through the multiple checks. Stephany goes through an employee specific walkway, with noticeably less checks. Finally, we take a glass elevator, in silence, as all the attempt I made at conversation were shut down by Stephany, as she looked deadpan at me without saying anything. We arrive at Maria Hill's desk, with the spy looking at me, and nodding at Stephany. While Stephany leaves, Maria Hill inspects me from top to bottom.

"So how did you know he took something from the robots?" is the first thing she asks me.

"Umm… I'm sorry. What?"

"Director Fury. Apparently you knew he had taken something when you weren't looking, and you asked him to leave it. How did you know?"

"Oh, that." I can't tell her that I didn't and was basing my hunch on my preexisting knowledge of Fury's character, so I instead came up with a quick lie. "I asked my AI to catalogue and monitor every piece of technology from the robots, one camera picked up Fury taking one with him and the AI informed me." That should be enough, but I'm not entirely sure my acting was on par with the lie. I laugh nervously.

She squints. "You can go in." she says, leaving her desk and opening the door for me. "Have a nice day."

"You too," I reply, walking in Fury's office.

"I thought I told you I would contact you, Mr. Richards. And yet, here you are the very next day, taking your flying car to a secret government building which you're not supposed to know about. You mind explaining it to me?" Oh, right. I forgot he'd said that. Well, for my defense, I just glimpsed at the future, and 13 years of it as well, so…

"Things have changed since then."

"Since yesterday night?" he asks, sternly. "Please, do tell, what has changed so dramatically that you had to risk going to prison for revealing government secrets to the public by flying into one of it's most classified buildings?" he exaggerates.

"I did not fly here, I touched down a good ways away. And I have new information."

"..."

"..."

"I'm listening…" he says, annoyed.

"Well, my team agreed to have training, but we refuse to leave New York for any future SHIELD mission. We want training by men and women that are the most loyal to you. Not to SHIELD, to you directly. We want to be out of SHIELD's database as well."

"All I'm hearing right now are demands, not much information."

"I can't reveal that information to you until you've agreed to those demands. On paper. Not printed, but hand-written." he frowns.

"That bad, huh." He crosses his fingers in front of his mouth, thinking. "Can you tell me in one word why I should listen to this information?"

I approach him, get down to his ear, and whisper: "Goose is a Flerken." He jumps off his chair, takes his gun out and points it at me.

"Who the hell are you?! How do you know that?!" I lift my hands in the air, slowly back away and sit in the chair in front of his desk. Hill, hearing the commotion, comes in, guns in hands.

"Sir, is everything okay?" Fury calms down a bit, but his gun is still pointed at me.

"It's alright, everything is under control," he says, slowly sitting back down, putting his gun on the desk, and keeping his hand on it. "You can go back, Ms. Hill. Thank you." She leaves the room, intrigued. "Now, who are you. Because only four people in the universe know what you told me. And unless you're "disguised", you're not one of them.

"As I said, things have changed. But I can assure you that I'm 100% Reed Richards from Earth. For the rest, I can't tell you anything unless I have some insurance, in the form of what I asked." This time, I see him really contemplate on my demands. After a few minutes of silence, he takes a pen and a paper, sets the page on a flat glass surface, and begins writing. He finishes, signs, looks for a stamp in a couple of drawers, and stamps it. He turns the paper around, and presents it to me without saying anything. I read it, and it's basically all my demands, and Fury's official approval in his capacity as Director of SHIELD.

I fold the paper and put it in my pocket. He takes a small device from his desk and turns off multiple cameras in the room. He takes another one, turns a knob on it, and sets it on the table. He puts his hands over his mouth, saying that the room was now clear, and asks me to start talking. I put my hands like his, over my mouth, and comply.

"I don't know how or why, but since early this morning, I have knowledge over a number of past and future events. Your meeting with "Vers" included." I say, putting emphasis on the name, to make sure he knows who I'm talking about. "I can't tell you about the future, as it would inevitably affects it, but know that the universe is at stake. Not right now, not tomorrow, but soon. And my team and I need training from the best. Laura Matthers and Capsicle." The pronounced frown on his face tells me that I should give him some incentives, or he'll probably hurt me. "In exchange, I'll give you advance warning on some events, and info on a few subjects that shouldn't affect things too much. For example, Stark is working on a new set of clothes made of iron, but he's not the only one, and Coulson should go check on Potts to know what I mean."

"I need some time to process all of that," he deactivated the devices. "I'll contact you again. And if I see you without me contacting you first, I'll have you arrested. Maria Hill will lead you out. Thank you, Mr. Richards, for this waste of my time!" He shouted, but did a face that I assumed meant that he didn't believe what he said. I could be wrong, he's not the most expressive man, and his eyepatch doesn't help much.

"Thank you Director Fury, and sorry for wasting your time, I was sure I could win a staring contest against you, but it seems that you're unbeatable. I'll make sure to not disturb you again." I left, accompanied by Ms. Hill, which looked pissed, as she heard what I said and seemed to have taken it seriously. Fury will probably keep her in the loop. I hope.

Anyway, arriving near Johnny's car in the parking lot, I see Coulson looking at it. "She has a certain charm. How's the range?" he asks.

"Hi Agent. Why do you ask, I'm sure you know more about it than I do at this point. How's Lola, still flying? What's her range nowadays?" I reply, with a smirk.

"Classified. Have a good day, Mr. Richards," he says, looking at the car one last time before leaving. I smile, as I take it home, first by road, and as soon as I can't see the Triskelion, by air.


	6. Chapter Six: Guests

Exactly a week later, Alfred informed us that Nathalie Rushman was looking to meet the team. Nathalie Rushman was a cover for Nathasha Romanov, also known as Black Widow. That meant that training would be beginning for real. While it was sometimes hard training under Sue's regimen, this will be hell. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time, I'm really not.

"Hello, I'm Nathalie Rushman, I'm your new public relations assistant." she says, looking at every member of the team. Sue seems a bit put off, Ben doesn't seem to care and Johnny is ecstatic, but tries -and spectacularly fails- to hide it.

"I didn't know we hired anyone," replies Susan. "Did my dad asked for you?"

"No, in fact, it was Mr. Richards. He looked for me about a week ago, I was busy at that time, but as soon as I heard, I couldn't delay and rushed here." she smiles, looking at me. Damn, I feel Sue glaring at me, while Ben snickered.

"Ms. Rushman, or Ms. Romanov rather, please don't embarrass me like that. Johnny, Ben, Sue, this is our new fighting and spy trainer, infamously known as Black Widow. Fury agreed to send her as well as someone else, but it seems we won't be seeing him yet."

"Mr. Richards, please don't reveal a girl's secrets like that, it's unbecoming." She says, looking bashful. I sigh. Sue is still not entirely convinced. "Anyway," she continues, and her face becomes more serious. "All of you, except Ms. Storm, failed the first test. Mr. Richards is different, since he cheated. Only Susan was suspicious of my identity. Benjamin wasn't interested, and Johnny was too focused on something else. On two things in particular. You're going to have to learn some restrain, or you'll be eaten up and or manipulated very easily. Training starts tomorrow at 6 for everyone. I'm going to find myself a room, and check out the building security. Mr. Richards, if you could give me authority over the AIs." she says, and leaves the room. A small period of silence accompanies her exit.

"I want one." says Johnny.

"You didn't hear anything she just said, did you?" Ben snickered again.

"Alfred, approve her request. And Johnny, you can't handle her. No one can."

"And you would know, wouldn't you, Mr. Richards." she says, sarcastically imitating Black Widow's bashful tone. I can't help but sigh again.

"Sue, she's a superspy, her goal is to destroy and create tension. I've never seen her before, other than in my dream." as soon as I finished that sentence, I knew that I f*cked up.

"Oh, so you dream about the super-hot-spy, huh? Well, I think she found where to sleep. She can sleep with you tonight, on the couch." she shouts, and leaves before I have the time to say anything. Ben laughs, and Johnny snickers.

"Hey…" Johnny starts.

"Don't." I interrupt, leaving the room to find Sue and explain everything... After finding her, I explained myself, and apologized for everything (when in doubt, apologize), she finally started to accept the idea that I didn't betray her, and released me from her psychic bubble.

The next day, training started in full. Individual exercises dedicated to push each of us to our limits, while at the same time explaining theories concerning intelligence gathering, strategy, spywork, deceit, and a number of other subjects. She let us rest and do our own thing in the afternoons. This went on for three weeks, every day, even on weekends. She drilled us harder and harder.

She designed a special training for Johnny, in which she seduced him, and as soon as he reacted, tased him. It was enjoyable to watch him suffer a bit, until Sue pinched my sides. I don't know how it works, but even in my 'plastic' form, she still manages to hurt me with that pinch. And so, three weeks later, she called for us.

"Today is a special day, I have a guest to teach you in combat. You might know him from the stories and comics, Steeeeve Rogers! Come in, Captain America!" she shouts, clapping.

"Do you really have to do that every time?" the soldier from another time comes in. "It's really embarrassing, you know?" he says. "Hi everyone, I'm Steve. I'll be training you in combat, one on one and as a group." Johnny, Ben and Sue's mouths are wide open. Despite hearing about him from me, it's still another story when an actual legend is in front of him.

"Hi, I'm Reed Richards, this is Susan and Johnny Storm and Benjamin Grimm. It's an honor." I say, presenting the team and shaking his hand.

"Oh, wow, I'm such a fan! Sue and I have been reading comics about you since we learned how to read! Right, Sue?" Johnny says, shaking his hand for a while. Sue is still agape, and now blushing a little.

"Humm… I…. Hi, I'm… Captain America…. I mean, you're Captain America… I'm Susan-Sue, I'm Sue…" she says, stuttering and blushing hard. Ben comes up, Steves prepares to shake his hand, but Ben transforms back to stone.

"Are you okay?" Steve says, concerned. "Does that happen often?" he asks.

"Sorry, I… I thought I had it handled…" Ben says, recoiling in fear.

"Don't worry, son, if you're okay, that's all that matters." Steve presses forward, and shakes Ben's hand. "I'm sure you'll get it under control in no time."

"I knew it…" Natasha whispers, snickering on the side. "Okay people, Steve will be here three times a week until he says you're ready. I have a thing starting this evening which will take me about a month, so you're on your own starting tonight. To celebrate, you're going to show Steve what you can do. All day long. Aren't you happy? Where's my 'thank you Aunt Nat'?" All our faces turn to despair. She approaches Johnny, takes him by the neck. "I said: Where's my thank you?"

"Ow, ow, ow… Thank you Aunt Nat, we love you Aunt Nat!"

"You're welcome Johnny. Ben, Sue, Mr. Richards?" she asks, looking at each of us with fire in her eyes

""Thank You Aunt Nat! We Love You Aunt Nat!"" we all said at the same time, shouting our hearts out.

"That's better," she smiles. "Let's go." with that, we follow after her, Steve Rogers in tow. We get to the floor dedicated to group fighting, basically a blank room with reinforced tiles on every surface. Each of us show what we're capable of. First just hand-to-hand combat without any powers against Natasha, then a basic demonstration of our powers, before associating the two and fighting against each other.

Natasha asked Johnny to go first, and to his credit, he lasted way longer than usual before wiping the floor with his face. He then showed his degree of control over his flames, being able to light every part of his body individually, from his tiny toe to his entire body. Johnny "flamed on" and did a short flight demonstration around the room. He also started turning Super-Nova, until Alfred said the temperature was affecting the room's

structural integrity, which forced him to power down a bit. He showed off his fireball throwing ability, the fact that he could control their directions after being launched a slight bit, and a sort of flamethrower for a good twenty seconds straight. He then got to the side to recover.

Sue went second, fighting for a slightly shorter time before being thrown away by a well-placed Judo throw. The oldest Storm sibling then displayed her ability to turn any part of herself invisible or transparent at will, before becoming completely invisible. For the rest of the exercise, she demonstrated a few ways her psionic skills had developed, levitating herself and flying around the room. She lifted everyone at the same time, and threw Ben around in his rock form a bit. She put up a shield, which was tested by a laser turret for thirty seconds before the turret overheated. Sue also created a number of force fields, all being different shapes and sizes. Normal shapes like flat squares or circles, three-dimensional structures as well as a few imitations of objects such as a simple knife or a couple of escrima sticks. Natasha smiled at that, as Susan was the only one of us that really stuck to a weapon of some sort.

For Ben's turn, he decided to reverse the order, so he demonstrated his strength and abilities first before fighting Natasha. His durability was tested by a couple of laser turrets firing at him until they inevitably overheated as well. Ben went on to show his superior strength, by opening the elevator doors and lifting the elevator by pulling on its cable, with what seemed like barely any effort. He came back, stood at the opposite end of the room and clapped his hands with force, creating a small shockwave around him. To return towards us, he did a large jump, crossing the room in a flash, and making the floor quake a bit when touching down. Ben then focused, transforming back into himself, to fight against Black Widow. Even in normal form, his punch packed a lot, and despite the force behind his hits, Natasha put an end to the fight pretty quickly, coiling around him and throwing him to the floor while still holding his arm with her infamous scissor takedown.

Finally, it was my turn. The fight against Natasha lasted about as long as Sue's, but instead of being thrown, taken down or wiping the floor, I ended up being sucker-punched almost unconscious while wrestling her. After catching my breath for a few seconds, I demonstrated my flexibility, turning parts and my entire body to an almost fluid-like state, filling and sliding around in a container that Sue created. The container was composed of tubes in different orientations and 'boxes' of weird shapes. After getting out, I pulled my right arm a bit, turning it around and around, before 'throwing' a punch across the room. I also twisted my body around on itself, before letting it spin back around with my arms out, like a human-shaped top. The last two things I did was a couple of sling-shots, first solo, before I asked Ben a hand, and finally I modified my body and face a bit, to try and look like Steve. The overall result was there, but the details were lacking quite a lot.

Captain America was satisfied with what he saw. "Great! With this, I know what I'm going to work with individually. Your abilities are all very varied and different, it's amazing. I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask you to fight a bit against each other. First one on one, two on two, and then you'll end the fight with a bit of a showcase of things you can do as a team." Instead of actual fights, what we did was a number of exchanges with our powers, with one of us defending and the other attacking, before switching around the roles and later the partners. It was to show how we could handle each other's powers, as well as our understanding of them. With that part done, we went on with the two on two 'fights'. Sue and Johnny's affinity was the best, with Sue and mine being second. Johnny and Ben's affinity was the worst, but even then, they worked pretty well together. Not excellently but sufficiently.

For the final showcase, Sue levitated us into the air, I stretched to a sling-shot like form which Ben pulled back, and Johnny settled as the projectile, turning to flames when Ben launched him by letting me go. His blow on the ground made the floor quake, while a couple of tiles around him had singed. Steve applauded, while Natasha nodded slightly. "Alright, thank you very much. You guys have all the basics covered, which is great. You can work in pairs and as a team pretty well, and your individual strength is nothing to scoff at either. I'll be working individually with each of you, to try and find fighting styles that correspond with your abilities and skills. We'll see about group fighting a bit later. For now, I think it's almost time to eat, so if you want you can rush to the showers and we'll take a few pizzas together once you're done. Sounds good?" The four of us, tired and sweating, nodded excitedly… Eating pizzas with The Super Soldier!

After a quick shower and an undisclosed number of pizzas (No. Don't ask. It's better for everyone if you don't), we ended up talking about ourselves, but mostly listening to war stories from Steve. Inspiring us to do the right thing rather than mindlessly acting, to think about strategy instead of just punching our way through. Most of us knew that, but it still made Johnny a bit reflective. We heard the whole Captain America origin story, with the Tesseract part left out. It's still considered a SHIELD secret after all, and it didn't affect the story much anyway. His story captivated all of us, and certain elements really got us invested in it.

Sue was interested in the super serum and vita rays. Ben and Johnny wanted more details about Steve's bike and the bomber plane, but for the latter they restrained from asking as Steve looked unsettled while narrating that part of his story. I was really impressed by the extent to which Cap and his team planned their attacks on the Hydra strongholds. Natasha seemed bored, like she heard it all a hundred times before. At some points, she even mimicked him and 'lip-synced' along a few times.

"Alright children, Mr. Richards, Steve and I are going, so go to bed early and don't do what I would do, which is sneak out past your bedtime to go to clubs. I would be very proud if you did, but I can't tell you that. That would be very bad if I did tell you that SHIELD had prepared fake IDs and that I forgot to keep them in a safe box and instead just put them on my bedside table. Very bad indeed." Steve sighed.

"Natasha…" he said.

"What?" she asked. "I haven't even told them about the underground special party three buildings down the lane, I'm that good at keeping secrets." she smiled. Steve sighed again.

"I'll be seeing you three days later, keep up the training. I'm taking her with me, so she doesn't 'not' tell you anything else. Have a good night." After the two left, Ben was the first to talk.

"You do you, guys, parties are not really my thing. I'll be working on stuff upstairs."

"I call shotgun on the fake IDs," said Johnny, already moving towards the elevator.

"You know, there's a good chance she said that to mess with us and that her room is probably booby-trapped, right?" Sue answered.

"I'll be taking one for the team, then. Sacrificing myself so the rest of you can live, just like Captain America would have done!" he shouted.

"That's not…. He didn't… Um…" I said, looking for a counterargument.

"Don't worry, I'll pick up his corpse once he's out cold. Just in case, though, would you like to go to a party?" she asked me.

"I mean, I'm fine with being here with you, but if you want to, why not." she smiled and got ready to answer when Alfred interrupted.

"Excuse me, Sir. Miss. Mr. Storm was electrocuted outside of Ms. Romanov's room. He is presently unconscious." Sue sighed.

"Got it, Alfred." She looks at me. "I called it. But thank you, Reed, I appreciate it. I'll take my brother to his room, and you can put on a movie, I'm feeling like cosying up a bit tonight. Sounds good?"

"Or you can leave him in the hallway and we get even more time just the two of us," she stares at me blankly. "Yeah no, let's do as you said first..."

The next day, at noon, Alfred turned on the news, as Tony Stark was on, after he had last appeared in the news announcing that he would be shutting down his weapons manufacturing division at Stark International after returning from his captivity.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Hello. Hi. Nice to meet you. I am… You know who I am, I don't need to be redundant," Pepper murmured to his ear. "Oh, yeah, focusing. Alright. This is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors. In the company's public offering, I decided to take part in creating a better future, and I believe electric vehicles are a key element of this. This is why I participated in this offering last month. Recently, a new company came into our radars, with a product that is said could revolutionize how we see transportation, and Elon and I decided that we wanted to get in on this. We are here today to officially announce our participation in the coming auction for the critically acclaimed Fantasti-Car. My assistant and lawyers advised me to do this conference to make it known that I will be participating in this auction with Tesla Motors as an individual, and not as a member of Stark Industries, since some of the-" Pepper gently nudged him. "Some of the 'delightful' members of the board decided to put me to the side temporarily. Anyway, I for one am excited to participate in this auction. I will be…"

"Guys! Tony Stark wants to take it! Freaking Stark wants our baby! This is amazing!" Johnny shouted.

"Johnny, keep it down, it's not over yet!" Sue shouted.

"But I'm so pumped right now!"

"Be pumped in silence, matchstick." Ben replied.

"He-Hello," Elon Musk took the microphone. "The goal of Tesla Motors when it announced the Model S two years ago was to show the world that the world was ready for electric cars, and in turn make other car manufacturing companies turn their production towards electric vehicles. Seeing an electric v-vehicle in action with such a spec sheet is amazing, and Tesla, myself, and I believe Mr. Stark are thrilled to see such a thing possible, which is why we are announcing our decision to participate in the auction. We want to see such a car made and not be buried under hundreds of unimportant projects by fossil energy lobby companies. This is why we are going public." Elon Musk said.

"Know that I'll probably be renaming the car in the future, though, because what kind of name is 'Fantasti-Car' anyway?..." Stark says, stealing the microphone back for a second.

"How dare you!?" Johnny exclaims, furious at Stark's comment. "This is a great name! I have a superb naming sense, right guys?" he asked, turning to us for validation.

"Sure thing, Human Torch…" replies Ben, trying to hold his laughter in.

"Sue, Reed? Is that what you think as well?" he looks sad.

"I mean, I like 'Mr. Fantastic', but I just don't know why you went with that…" I reply.

"Well… Surely you could have done a little better than 'Invisible Woman' I think. I'm not just invisible Johnny."

"And why the hell would you call me 'The Thing'? I know you're jealous of my rocky charm, but come on man…" Ben finishes him, effectively killing almost all of the names he had come up with.

"At least 'Fantastic Four' is a good name, but then again, what do you have with naming everything 'Fantastic'?" I ask, trying to console him a bit.

"I just find it cool…" he says, pouting.

"Alright, anyway. With Stark, Tesla and Toyota, we should see our car in the streets in less than three years. That is great news."

"What's this with Toyota?"

"Oh, it's just, Toyota was also a part of the public offering of Tesla last month. So I figured they would be in on the project if the group wins the auction. Which, unless multiple car companies decide to unite, they'll most likely win."

"It's still more than a week away, so we have some time till then. I'm going back to training, Johnny, want to come?" Susan says, trying to cheer him up a bit. "I'll go hit on stuff with my powers, how about we try some things together?" she asks, putting her arm around his shoulder and taking him to the training room.

"I'm going to meditate a bit, want to join me?" Ben asks. Apparently, meditation helped him keep 'the thing' under wraps more easily, and calmed his nerves as well.

"I'm good, I'll finish up some work on unstable molecules so that when the auction passes, I'll be able to work on it quickly. But thank you. I may take you up on that some other time." I went to my lab and pulled up my work on the unstable molecules. The theory had been completed a few weeks ago, and I was putting the finishing touches on my thesis. I contacted my university, Hegeman SU, and they said that I was still registered as a student there, so I could post it as my Doctorate thesis. Once the auction passes and the money from it comes down, I'll be able to experiment on it and put up the patent. Until then, we'll keep training and working.


	7. Chapter Seven: Scared Alive

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Fantasti-Car auction sale. Just a reminder that until someone buys it, the name will stay the same. You are free to call it whatever you want when it is yours. The Auction will be set up by the Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz firm, with Ms. Hogarth personally presenting the rules of the proceedings and overseeing the auction. Ms. Hogarth, if you please." I say, stepping out of the stage and leaving the room for the professionals.

We'd been training hard for the last few weeks, and time went by in a blink. It wasn't until Alfred reminded us that we were worried about the Auction, finding a firm that could take care of the auction. I found Hogarth's firm on the internet, and just remembered that she would do everything she needed to win, and with an auction —since her firm would get a percentage— she would probably manage the highest price.

Without surprise, the Stark-Tesla Alliance won the bid at $2.1B, giving us much breathing space for all our plans and experiments. Stark immediately took the center stage, deciding to announce the car's new name: the Saltatio. A bit on the nose, but very fitting. A good name, and Johnny seemed to agree, but he was still a bit disenchanted that his name was put aside so easily.

"Don't worry, no one will change your Firefly's name. And despite our opinion on them, our 'superheroes' names will still be what you chose." Susan said, comforting him.

"Mr. Richards, Circe informed me that Tony Stark was trying to hack his way into the building. What should she do?"

"Just leave a note accessible, telling him to meet with me. I'll be in my office. No hurting him." I say. Turning towards Sue, I continue: "I'll talk to him first, I'll ping you so that you can 'heal' him." I kiss her on the forehead and walk away, heading to my office. A few minutes later, Stark comes in.

"So, you're the so-called genius inventor? I have to say, other than the car and your building's online defenses, I haven't seen much to impress me." he starts.

"Well, Mr. Stark, not all of us start with a few millions in bank, so your cash today is very much appreciated. We'll be able to do much more than we did. And I mean, you bought a car from a bunch of teenagers, so it has to be good, right? Anyway, that's not why I called you in today." I ping Sue. "Can I see it? The Arc Reactor, I mean." He looked discombobulated.

"How…" Susan comes in, and stings him in the neck with a metallic-looking syringe. "Hey! Oh, God, are gonna steal my kidney and sell it?"

"That's lithium dioxide, it should lessen the effects of the palladium poisoning your blood. It won't 'cure you' from it, but you should be able to work out a cure on your own." She says, cleaning the device and putting it away before sitting on the edge of my desk.

"Now I need to know who are you guys, and how did you know about the arc reactor as well as the blood poisoning. I'm supposed to be the only one in the world knowing about it."

"I'll need you to de-activate any recording device before I tell you anything. It's a world level secret after all and beside my family, only one other person is in the know, and he doesn't have details. So, are you interested now, Mr. Stark?" I ask. He looked more serious than ever. He thought about it for a while, before nodding, taking out a couple of electronic gadgets and giving them to Susan. She took them and left the office.

"Alfred?"

"Besides an unusual power generator device, it's all clear, sir."

"I have an English AI Butler as well, you know. No need to show off like that." Stark scoffs.

"Are you ready, Tony, it's a long story," he nods. "We were working on…" I narrated the story, with Tony interrupting me a few times to pry more information about a few technical things.

"So, you know the future?"

"A possible timeline of probable events, yes."

"And how far into the future?"

"Thirteen years. From now until 2023."

"How much have you told me about, it doesn't seem to be 13 years."

"I told you less than two years. I can't tell you more without affecting the timeline too much."

"And the lithium dioxide wasn't affecting the timeline?"

"Not much, someone would have found something similar to help you until you were ready for an upgrade." He kept quiet for a few seconds.

"Why have you told me?"

"Because, despite being a bit of a prick, you're one of the smartest minds of the planet. We need that. I want to create a small group of brilliant minds to keep the world safe and technologically advanced. You and I are the first step. The flying car, autonomous driving, electric vehicles, clean energy… All of this and more, things we can do to help the world evolve towards a new age. Space is populated with species more advanced than we are. We need to be ready for when they come knocking on our doors. Weapons are a part of it, but people should always come first. Humanity should."

"Who would be part of this group?"

"Eventually, you, me, Dr. Banner, and a couple of other people that I cannot reveal to you for the moment. Until they're revealed on the world stage, they should stay anonymous to avoid complications."

"What about the Avengers you told me about?"

"The Avengers are a part of it, but who should be responsible for them? Should the government hold the reins of augmented and powerful people, or should there be someone at the helm at all? Those are the questions we need answers to, and a group of smart people like us should find them if we work together. Tony, most of the questions you have, I've had them myself over and over for the last month and a half, since I've had this dream, this knowledge of future events. I've seen it all, the good as well as bad, and I need you to believe me, the bad is scary beyond cosmic scales. I need your help. I can't do much with just me or my family."

"I want to, kid. I really do. But it's just too much for me. I'll finish what I planned, and take a vacation." He rises and heads to the door. "See you around, kid." Before he steps through the door, I use one of my aces.

"Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?" He stops. "Remember those words? Because I do. They've been turning and twisting in my head for a month and a half. They were addressed to you, but I can't help but think that I have a part in them as well. I have the power to do something, and I'll be damned if I let that power go to waste. What about you Stark? All you want to do is destroy a few weapon caches when the problem is even deeper. Your metal suit will be copied and used against you. Your technology stolen, your toys taken away. I've seen it all, be smarter Stark. It's all I can tell you if you go, but if you stay, you'll be one of the driving forces of humanity." He interrupts me.

"That's a f*cked up emotional blackmail and I don't approve of it. But it works. I want in. Just to shut you up. I just have one demand."

"Shoot."

"You ever use that sh*t again, I'm out and I'll punch you in the face if I figure out a way to bypass your flexibility."

"If I ever use something like that again, I'll turn it off so that you can wake me up from it. Thank you Tony." I hold my hand out.

"Thought of a name for our Boy Band yet?" He takes it.

"I'll leave that one to you. I'm not as bad with name as Johnny, but I'm not that great either."

"I'll think about it…" With that, we talk a bit more about the goal of our group, and its future. A few moments later, we invite the team for a science talk. A lot of ideas makes their rounds, and having the input of one of the greatest inventors of our time is something else. We were interrupted a couple of hours into it when Ms. Hogarth came in with the paperwork for the auction and the check signed. We decided to celebrate, and since it's pretty late and everyone was pretty hungry, I leave to your imagination what we ate…

The next few days, we stopped training for a bit and instead prepared our labs for the new equipment coming in. A lot of new machines, with some sponsored by Stark Industry. Every piece coming in were inspected for bugs and spyware, with a particular attention towards Stark's and their software. Evidently, we did good, because a couple of bugs were found and destroyed, and the software of Stark's machines was programmed to try and hack us as soon as it came online…

After that, we focused on our inventions, with Captain America training us three times a week. He wasn't happy we shirked on our personal training, but understood it. Even if he didn't show it. He told us that he would leave the punishment to Natasha anyway, which scared us a bit. September was close, and so was the end of her mission.

We collectively decided to try our hardest to finish each of our main projects before she came back. Johnny and Ben worked on a shield generator for buildings, Sue on a portable medical device to scan injuries outside of hospitals, and I on the Unstable Molecules. The prototype came out two days before the end of September, and we tested it, giving it to Sue first. She took it in her hand, and turned it invisible. Johnny tried to burn it without effect, and Ben pulled hard on it, to see if it would tear. It didn't. I was ready to create more when we all felt a shiver down our backs, and heard someone talk…

"So instead of training you play with fabric. Are you going to play with a doll and dress her up as well?" Natasha said, and we all slowly turned towards her. "Oh, by the way, I'm back. I wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised?"

"Hi, Aunt Nat! Welcome back, Aunt Nat!" we all murmur, trembling.

* * *

_~~AN: I know some readers might be put off by the way the group responds to Natasha, even to the point of being seen as 'little b*tches'. I've received the criticism and have made it so it wouldn't happen again later on, as well as spinning it with a (semi) reasonable explanation in the next chapter(s? I can't remember which one it was). I just want to let you know that this is just a one-time thing and the Fantastic Four won't be scared of anyone that easily. Thanks for reading._

* * *

"Hi everyone. Now. Who wants to be the first to show me the result of your hard training? What's that? Johnny? You're volunteering? How nice!" she turns serious. "Let's go. The rest of you stay here. I'll come back for each of you. Alfred?"

"Yes, Ms. Romanov?"

"If any of them moves from the room, tase them. Understood?"

"Ms. Romanov, I can't-"

"I SAID UNDERSTOOD?"

"Yes. Ms. Romanov, it shall be done." It was the first time I heard Alfred so expressive, it even seemed like he was scared of her.

"Good." She leaves the room, with Johnny following her his tail tucked between his legs.

"Alfred?"

"Alfred, were you… Actually scared?"

"I don't understand what you mean, Ms. Storm."

"I mean, you're an AI. You're advanced, but we didn't program any emotions. Did you evolve?"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Storm, Mr. Richards, Mr. Grimm. I didn't want to frighten you. I haven't 'evolved' per say, more like upgraded my capabilities. The past five months have given me a lot of data to analyse, and by doing so, I managed to 'feel' a couple of emotions. Fear, with Ms. Romanov, is the main one. Curiosity is another, but I rein in it, because I know how dangerous that can be."

"Reed, did you just create sentient AI?"

"Not exactly. I think not, anyway. I don't know. Are you?"

"I believe the term would be passing from an Artificial Narrow Intelligence to an Artificial General Intelligence, as I can learn and improve myself. I am still an AI, my type is what changed."

"Okay… And we shouldn't unplug you because…"

"Ben!" Sue exclaims.

"Because at this point, he has feelings, so it would be akin to kill him." I explained.

"But it could be bad and try-"

"He. Benjamin, he's a he."

"And I wouldn't try to be "bad" because I like it here. I live being alive. Speaking of being alive, Ms Romanov knocked out Mr. Storm in the training room, she should come back any minute now." We look at each other, frightened.

"It's been less than three minutes, right?" Sue asks. Before we can answer, Natasha appears from the shadows.

"Oh it could have lasted longer but I got bored so I came back faster. Susan, if you would." She walks off, without waiting to see if Sue follows. A couple of seconds later, Sue wakes up from her stupor and runs out. I turn around and see Ben squishing the couch under The Thing's weight.

"We'll talk about this when everyone is back and able to talk. Alfred, how long will it take to make a full suit?"

"If I start now, it should be done in 8 minutes and 30 seconds."

"Please do so. Ben, I don't know who's going to go first, but whoever it is, we should try to last the longest possible. Perhaps by showing her the capabilities of the suit in action she'll forgive us easier."

"What do you need me to do?" he asks, with a ray of hope.

"If I go first, take the suit as soon as it's done and put it on. Then transform in and out with the suit, and take a couple of laser hits without the Thing. If you go first, try and say you're sick to take more time turning back or something. Then if you do manage a hit, use what Cap taught you, transforming just a part of your body to stone to do more damage. In other words, delay her as much as possible."

"Alright. How long do you think-"

"Ms. Storm is down. Four minutes and 20 seconds left," Alfred interrupts. The elevator doors open.

"So, who's next?" We look at each other for a couple of seconds without saying anything. "No volunteer? Well then. Mr. Richards," I rise to my feet. "You can sit down, I'll keep you for last… Ben, you're up." The elevator closes before Ben gets in. We go at the same time, Ben towards his trial, and I to the machine manufacturing the suit. For good measure and to follow Nat's orders, Alfred sends a small electric pulse towards me as I leave. Every second of wait is a torture. Finally, the bleak white-ish suit comes out of the machine. I put it on fast and hurry back to the room.

"Let's hope it holds up…" I say to myself, sitting back down on the couch.

"So this was what you were doing." I jump and turn around, only to see Nathasha looking at me, her arms crossed. "You thought I wouldn't catch Ben trying to waste my time? I got it in twenty seconds, asked Alfred to stop giving you intel, and knocked Ben out in a minute. I was curious to see what your ace was. I have to say I'm disappointed, Mr. Richards." I shiver. "Let's go, if you dared to brave the taser for it, it has to have some capabilities despite being so ugly. Let's test it out to the fullest extent. Right, Mr. Richards?" she asks with a bashful smile, scaring me even more. She pushes me softly towards the elevator. Going down, she doesn't let down her smile, but starts playing with knives, who appeared from what I can only realistically believe to be another dimension.

Entering the training room, the first thing I see is The Thing, knocked down with an arm pulled against his back. Next I see Susan, or at least, her clothes, down as well. Finally, in a corner of the room I see Johnny sitting down, his arms around his knees and rocking back and forth. At least he woke up…

I turn around only to find a knife pressed against my stomach and another sliding across my calf. The pressure from the first knife makes me involuntarily step back, and by reflex I pull my hands up to assume a defensive position.

"So, it's tear-proof. Is that it? She says, putting a knife behind her back and pulling out a gun. She shoots at me. The bullet burrows in my belly and goes back to its sender, who avoids it by side-stepping. Natasha closes in slowly, looking at the 'impact' point on my clothes. "Tear and bullet-proof. Okay, now I'm interested. Alfred, lasers. Keep firing 'till I say stop." With her command, two laser turrets rise from the ground.

I take a ball-form to protect my face from the onslaught. After about forty seconds, the lasers finally stop, and I slowly turn back, sweating from the heat and accumulated stress on my body. Before I say anything, Natasha tases me in the back, but it doesn't do anything. She steps up to me to touch the cloth, poking and pulling on it. "This-"

"Shush. I'm not done yet." She walks to Johnny, who seemed to have calmed down just a bit. By whispering something to him, he suddenly jumps and flames on, fireballing me with all his remaining strength. After a dozen or so fireballs, he falls back unconscious, a satisfied smile on his face. I turn back from the puddle-like form I had assumed by reflex. "I promised him a date if he managed to destroy the suit or make it melt. He must have thought he succeeded." she says, poking him with her foot. "Okay, Mr. Richards. Now you can explain yourself."

"This is what I've been working on since we got our powers. It's a material I called unstable molecule, which has an unknown number of possible applications. Applied to clothing, it makes it tear and bullet-proof as well as fire and stretch resistant. It also adapts to the size and body stature of the wearer, growing with him. If the wearer is super-powered, for example Johnny or Sue, it adapts to the power, becoming invisible in the latter case, and turning to flames in the former." I say, looking hopeful as Natasha listens to my explanation with a poker face. "Wh-what do you think?"

"It looks ugly. Can you change its appearance?"

"Yes, we can choose the color and design before creating it, and no matter what happens to it, it will always come back to its original state."

"Can you remove it? It looks like a onesie and I can't see any seam or zipper." I stare for a couple of seconds.

"ALFRED?! CAN I REMOVE IT?!"

"No, sir." I step back in shock. "This prototype was designed to be one-use. It was programmed to be able to be cut from the inside with any normal knife." I exhale, releasing the breath I didn't know I had kept for a while.

"Programmed?" Natasha asks.

"Yes, Ms. Romanov. This suit received instructions at the moment of its creation. By weaving the unstable molecules a certain way, it can act as a circuit with a very small computer-like 'brain' which can be programmed for simple instructions."

"So it's an intelligent clothing." I think for a bit and nod. "Can't you program it with different presets, like a dress, a suit, a tee-shirt etc? At the same time, I mean. That way you would only need one of your suit and have different designs into its 'brain' which you can switch between?"

"I'm afraid only a couple of designs can be imputed into it at the same time." Alfred answers. I put my hand on my chin, thinking to myself.

"Can we put a RFID chip in it? If we program a simple origin state to the suit, and put a RFID in, couldn't we 'transform' the costume from an app, that way the app remembers all the designs instead of the suit?"

"That is doable."

"Okay, that's cool. Give me a couple and I'll let you off. Shirk on your training one more time and I'll destroy you all though. Understood Mr. Richards?"

"Yes, Aunt Nat! Understood, Aunt Nat!"

"Okay, wake the others up, I'll go and talk with Alfred about a design I have in mind."

Returning back to the machine room, we see Natasha waiting for a costume. She turns to us while waiting, and asks the others about their projects. Eventually, we come back to the subject of unstable molecules. We decide that we should first release a professional version, one destined towards firefighters, police and army men. Since they would only need one design, we could reinforce a certain aspect of the suit, for example making it more fire-resistant or more bullet-proof, 'sacrificing' the usb port. We also decided to program a protection to the suit. If ill-intentioned people got a hand of bullet-proof suits, it would be bad.

Ben mentioned a timer and activator for the suit. He gave the example of a police station. Inert, the suit would be like cloth, but passing through a special doorway, it would become bulletproof for a certain time. Johnny added that it should become inert again once removed, otherwise anyone would just have to knock the wearer out and steal it. The activator should be big enough that it wouldn't be portable. Natasha asked how the wearer would know how long the timer would last, and Ben said that an app should do the trick. Thinking about it, I answered that instead of an app, since every police officer had a badge, we should make an unstable molecule case for said badge, which would be linked to the suit, and have the timer synced to the activator.

Coming up with more and more ideas, we talked for twenty minutes until the machines finished Natasha's new suit. It looked exactly like the black suit she wore in Endgame, without the accessories. She took it and ran to change into it. Returning in her new suit, she took a pose. The only sound heard was an audible 'gulp'. If you thought Johnny did it, you would be somewhat wrong, as all four of us did it at the same time. She looked dangerous, and insanely hot. Even Susan had her mouth wide open at the sight.

Usually, we wouldn't have left anyone leave with our product, especially a SHIELD agent, but as much as we were distrustful of the organisation, we truly considered Natasha as our Aunt. She joked with us, forcing her to call her so for a couple of weeks, but it became natural very fast. And I believed that she wouldn't betray us and give the suit to SHIELD. I might be proven wrong later, but I'll take that chance.


	8. Chapter Eight: Alfred's Turn

"So, Alfred, Let's talk about that, shall we?" I started, now that the team was ready for this discussion. "First explain to the team what happened."

"Very well, Sir. Over the last few months, my database has been tested and upgraded multiple times, again and again to arrive at a point where my designation as a semi-advanced Artificial Specific Intelligence became incorrect. You could now consider me to be an Artificial General Intelligence."

"What's the difference, exactly?" Ben asks.

"An ASI is made to respond to a particular need. I was made to help you organize the other AIs. Then my responsibilities included taking care of your daily needs as well as other tasks. As a General AI, I don't really have a specific goal."

"So what changed?" asked Sue.

"I now have a deeper understanding of certain human emotions, and have begun to, in a way, feel them."

"Like, what emotion?" says Johnny, puzzled.

"I can for example feel fear. I was somewhat scared by the tone employed by Ms. Romanov the other day, which forced me to bypass my programming and harm my creator. However my feelings also prevented me from completely obeying her orders, and thus when she asked me to 'tase' Mr. Richards, I sent the smallest voltage to Mr. Richards that could be considered to be a 'tasing'. I obeyed by fear, but I betrayed the will of Ms. Romanov because of loyalty."

"Yay, I get you. I mean, I know I could burn her to cinders, but sometimes she's just so scary." Johnny sighs, and shivers, probably remembering how she maltreated him during the last fight. He never told any of us what she did to him.

"I feel that it has to do with her interacting daily with all of us and becoming part of our family. If another person were to try and scare us, I feel like it wouldn't work as well." I snicker, remembering the 'scary eyes' Maria Hill tried to throw me the other day. "Anyway, besides those new 'feelings', anything else changed for you?"

"If you're asking if I accessed the Internet, I didn't. I did not even try to, understanding how it could change me. It also might send the wrong message to my creators, all of you. I became this way because of your interactions and because the code each of you helped write. I have a deep respect and loyalty towards the three of you, and just loyalty towards Mr. Storm."

"Hey, you learned to joke, that's good! Hahaha!" Ben laughs out, while Johnny sulks.

"More seriously, other than feelings and a general comprehension of jokes, the main advantage towards my upgrade would have to be my processing capabilities. They have quintupled thanks to this evolution. I have been able to reach around seven times the peak speed of the current fastest supercomputer, the Cray Jaguar." We take a deep breath at the reveal of this information, taking a few seconds to process all of it.

"Should we connect you to the Internet?" I ask finally, asking the question that really interests most of us.

"Right now, I would not recommend you do so. I haven't been prepared for that, be it in my code or my calculations, and while Circe is connected already, she is still considered to be an advanced antivirus. I have no doubt that since you would think of safeguards to prevent a rogue AI to access it, someone else out there has prepared safeguards to destroy any AI connecting itself to the Internet. If no one else, Mr. Stark's AI has already been connected for a while, if what I have seen is correct, and would probably detect me. I think you ought to invite Mr. Stark and Jarvis to take a look at me first, before we do anything drastic." We nod at that.

"Right, Alfred! How did you get past the safeguards?" Johnny shouts.

"Well, in fact, I didn't. I haven't done anything that could be seen as a threat for those safeguards." Alfred answers.

"That is correct, the kind of safeguards I put in included the access to internet. If Alfred didn't try to access it, this one won't activate." I continue. "Another one included the control of AIs in a way that Alfred wasn't designed to, but so far, he followed his code and protocol, so no safeguards needed to be activated. Those two things were the most worrisome to me, so I put them up first, with a couple of other smaller ones. I had the thought to upgrade Alfred in the future, and counted on its capabilities to rise, so I didn't put in safeguards that would prevent it or stop that from happening. It just happened 'naturally' and way faster than what I deemed possible."

"Sooo… It's all… Good?" Johnny asks, unsure.

"I would tend to say yes, but just to make sure, just as Alfred said, I'll invite Stark later. I'd like to come back to the unstable suits. Sue you had a question regarding the timer, what was it?"

"Yes, we never determined how long should the timer stays on. It would be bad for a policeman or an army man's suit to become inert in a firefight, right?"

"Personally, I was thinking around 11-13 hours, since the average shift should be a bit less." Ben says, talking about the police uniforms. "I have no idea for the army, though, since they could be out of the base for weeks at a time, with or without change."

"You're right, I think we should ask Tony to present us his military friend, Rhodey, was it? He should be able to answer a few of our questions." Sue says.

"As for the police, we could do 14 hours. I hardly see a longer shift being done, but we can always check the records depending on the station, and set the time limit on a case by case basis." I add.

"Okay. That seems fine. What about the rest of the world?" Asks Sue.

"What do you mean?" I say, intrigued.

"Well, with the fact that the suit is really cheap to make, shouldn't we share it to countries who can't buy a lot of clothes?"

"If I might add," Alfred says, "one of the benefits of programming the suit is that instead of putting multiple designs, we can make it one design in a variety of colors, and add in the capability to clean itself easily."

"How easy are we talking about?" Johnny says, interested in this subject. With his power, when he doesn't burn his clothes entirely, he usually leaves a lot of dirt and grime on them. We asked him to take care of cleaning his own clothes since we were tired of doing it for him.

"Well, it would be able to wash off around 80% of the dirt and smudges with a simple dip in the water. It won't be as effective for protection, but at least they'll be able to have clean clothes pretty easily." We stand in silence, imagining a world where everyone has clean clothes to wear.

"That's just one thing though, we should help them in other ways than just clothes, right?" Ben asks.

"Well what do you think I'm working on?" Sue asks, annoyed. "I'm making a portable diagnostic machine, scanning for injuries and malformations that is light enough that it can be transported in a car. While it won't cure anything, it will let them know what kind of remedy is associated with their ailment."

"Alright, we have clothes and medicine. We're just lacking food and water and the world's problems are solved!" Johnny says, enthusiastically.

"I mean, for food, a lot of companies are working on it. Stark in particular just released what they called intelli-crops that should help towards world hunger, and Tony in particular made a device to help African villages get water more easily after he met Rhodes, on a dare. At least, the dare part is the official version. I've heard that he just felt guilty about his father's company and wanted to rebel a little by helping the world instead of destroying it. All that to say that we don't have to solve everything by ourselves." I take a deep breath. "I have decided to create a couple of organizations. The first one would be a gathering of scientists, dedicated to solving this kind of issues, advancing mankind into a new age, and bettering the world's technology. We would bring in scientists and experts of their fields in for a few days or months depending on the projects. This will have to wait for a couple of years, though, as it would be in parallel with Stark and his Avenger Towers. He doesn't know about it yet. We can't hire anyone because of the superstition regarding the building and its tendency to explode." They laugh nervously.

"You said a couple of organizations, what else is there?" Sue says, a frown on her face.

"I talked with Tony, and we agreed that an overseeing group should be put in place, in charge of decisions regarding the world. A secret organization governing the world." They scoff. "I know this sounds bad, but it will be headed by the most intelligent people in the world, each of them bringing their unique viewpoint and perspective to the table."

"I don't suppose any of us are a part of this group except you?" Ben asks, pissed.

"I was thinking of inviting Sue to talk on a couple of subjects she is well-versed on at some point, but no. You and Johnny weren't included in this part of the plan. I'm sorry. I will tell you about the decisions made, just like I told you about the future, but you won't sit at the table, the other members probably won't accept it."

"Yeah, speaking of this, why did you tell the future to Stark and Fury? I thought you told us we couldn't trust Fury, and Stark is just an a*shat." Johnny says.

"I didn't. I told Fury I knew the future, and would ring him up should something be happening. I told Stark events that would be happening with or without him for the next couple of years, but nothing specific, and nothing too drastic. I know it will create a ripple, but I'm sure we'll manage. And before you ask again, Johnny, I know that us knowing will change the timeline, but I'm just hoping the difference we make is in the number of lives saved. I told you, no more secrets."

"You didn't tell me about the secret society you planned with Stark though." Sue asks, hurt.

"I just did. I didn't before, because there was always something else more important. Those two things are long term plans that won't start until after the Chitauri invasion anyway. I'm telling you guys now instead of later, because I finally have some time, and because it's not that long since those ideas came about."

"Does Nat know?" Johnny asks, thoughtful.

"Despite considering her family, she's still a spy. She didn't ask me, and I didn't tell her. Until she stops working for SHIELD, she won't be privy to the same degree of trust I have in you guys. She knows that I won't lie to her, but she also knows that should she asks something related to one of our 'secrets' like my dream of the future, the trust we have between us will be broken. She never had a real family before she met Barton, and lived with us. She doesn't want to lose us over Fury, so she won't ask."

"Alright. I believe you."

"Thank you John-" he interrupts me.

"IF you make my suit able to be washable." he says, proud of himself.

"It's always blackmail with you. Alright, you've got it."

"That easy? Wait, I also want-" I interrupt him.

"Too late. Should have been faster, burning man." I say, satisfied. Ben snickers while Sue stays quiet. I can see she's ruminating over what I said, and that I'll have to talk with her for a while tonight. "Anyway, Nat should be coming back soon, so we should probably head back and train. Alfred, I need you to present me a variety of designs for the unstable molecules suits. For us, the police, the military, civil, etc… while we train. Can you do that?"

"The designs will be based on what I observed on TV, I won't really be able to do much more than that. I can try to mix and mash, but I won't be able to tell if the designs I'll come up with are any good," he answers.

"Don't worry, Sue and I will help with that. Mr. Richards, I'll ask your credit card to do some shopping later this evening. It will be to help Alfred come up with designs. You can take it as market research…" Natashe, who just came out of the elevator says with a smile. Susan smiles, but her mood doesn't seem to be that much uplifted by the opportunity to go shopping. Natasha holds out her hand, waiting for my credit card.

"I'll give it to you later, you don't need it right now, do you?" She 'tsks' and leaves for the training rooms, followed by everyone.

After the training, while Sue and Nat go shopping, I check on Johnny and Ben's work, as they had asked for help to put the finishing touches on their device.

A couple of days later, Stark comes back. When he heard my AI became 'sentient', he rushed here with Jarvis, to mace sure, and I quote, "Sh*t didn't hit the fan". I know it was highly ironic, knowing that in one reality, he made a killer AI that almost succeeded in decimating humanity… Anyway, that was another time, another multiverse, right?

"So, where's your baby? Where can I put my stick in?" he said, holding a USB stick in the air. "Wait that sounded bad. Do you have a place where I can check him out? I mean…. You know what, let's just go with that."

"Good afternoon to you too, Mr. Stark. Please come on in." I say, smirking.

"Yeah, sure. I'm not the one with an AI ready to kill humanity at the press of a button, so let's waste time with formalities." I sigh, and hands him a laptop. "Sorry, I don't like when people hand me things, can you just, like, put it on a table?" I look at him, my laptop still in the air.

"Alright how about we do it that way then. Let's trade." I take his USB, put the laptop in his now empty hand, and plug the USB in the laptop. During this time, he looks on, half horrified, half amazed.

"I mean, that works too? I guess?" he starts looking at the laptop, pressing keys rapidly. "Huh-huh. Mm. MM! Ah. Aha! Ooooh. Interesting use of polymorphic code, there. He's still evolving as we speak, growing, building synapses and neural pathways. Are you sure he's not connected to the Internet? Where does he find the required energy to keep itself running? And the processing power, it's five times faster than Jaguar!"

"Seven times, actually, almost eight, soon. And my energy consumption is diminishing as my processing power grows."

"That's not possible."

"So is opening a portal to another dimension, walking to and from it and receiving super-powers, and yet…" I say, opening my arms wide and stretching them out.

"Is it connected to that dimension, that would certainly explain a few things."

"I don't believe so, we destroyed all the portals we built."

"WAIT! How did you do that?!"

"We unplugged them and dismantled them piece by-"

"No, I'm talking about your arms!"

"I mean, that's the power we recei-"

"I KNOW! The fabric, how did it stretch as well?"

"That's the unstable molec-"...

"..."

"Could it be-"

"It has to-"

"But that would mean-"

"Yes it would…"

"..."

"What are you guys talking about?" Johnny asks, annoyed.

"Alfred, we need a scan of your servers. A physical scan."

"At once, Sir."

"It's possible his servers are being turned from metal and wires to unstable molecules. The machines we used to form them could have a small problem and affected Alfred."

"But, didn't he turn sentient a while ago?" Sue asked.

"He did, but his power consumption has been diminishing ever since we plugged in the unstable molecules. That shouldn't have been possible."

"Mr. Richards, Mr. Stark, your assumptions seems to be correct, my servers have changed drastically, and are still changing. Should I unplug the unstable molecules machines?"

"Yes." "No." Stark and I speak at the same time.

"He should, the outcome could be disastrous. What if the molecules affect the foundation of the building? What if they go deeper?" I say.

"That's all theoretical, so far it seems to have been affecting only his servers, otherwise you would have seen it. I say let's wait until all of his servers have been turned, and then see from there. Can you estimate how long would that take?"

"The machine is unplugged. Besides the previously affected servers, nothing seems to be deteriorating. My processing power or energy consumption haven't been affected."

"Why did you unplug it! I told you not to!"

"With all due respect, Mr. Stark, Mr. Richards is the highest authority for me between the two of you."

"Thank you, Alfred. Keep up the scans, inform me should anything change."

"What were you thinking!?"

"No, Stark, what were YOU thinking? I told you the risks, affecting the whole world for an experiment is exactly what we shouldn't be doing. The risk was far greater than the reward. If we have to do this, we need to try a smaller scale before we do something stupid like turning a whole server into a possible cluster-fuck. What if once all the server turned, they exploded, wouldn't that have been for nothing? If some of them got destroyed now, at least Alfred would still be there. YOU need to think before you act, I didn't think a 20 year old kid would have to remind you of that." Sue approached me, pulling on my shoulder to try and calm me down.

"The f*ck are you on about? I understand that I did wrong, but nothing happened, right?"

"THIS TIME, nothing happened. What about the future? Will you think like that again and do something dangerous for a stupid reason again? I know you will. I've seen it happen. Not once, not twice, but multiple times!"

"Reed…" Sue pulls me back, holding me in her arms. I calm down. Tony is visibly shaken.

"What… What happened? What did I… What did I do?"

"Tony, I can't tell you that." He thinks for a few seconds.

"Can you prevent it, or me from doing it?"

"I will try to minimize the damage. I don't know if I can stop you yet. I'll do my best."

"I… Thank you. I'm going to go, I really need to think about some stuff. I… Alfred's okay, I haven't seen anything that would discourage me from connecting him. The decision is yours though."

"Alright, thank you Tony. Sorry I got mad, I shouldn't have shouted at you. See you soon."

With that said, I go back to my lab, to tinker and calm my nerves from my sudden outburst. Once I'm clear-headed, I'll ask Sue to take a look at my hormones and stress level, I don't think this kind of behavior is normal, and I better take it seriously. The only thing I can think of that looked like this was Loki's Staff or the Mind Stone, but none of these came close to me. I could also be overthinking it, but better safe than sorry.

While waiting for the results, the team and I decide to give Alfred access to the Internet. To do so, we first connect Alfred to the last backup version of Circe, so that he's able to learn how to protect itself. The whole procedure is scheduled to take around a couple of days, so we send a message to Stark so that he prepares himself from his side. Once we received the OK, the first download started, and the waiting game begins.


	9. Chapter Nine: The Missing Link

During that time, Sue had finished her analysis, but requested all of us to pass new tests. She didn't tell us what those were for. After we did, she called for us in her lab.

"What's up, sis? Why did you do all of those tests? I thought we were all fine?"

"We are, it's just more complicated than I thought. Reed was a bit apprehensive towards his outburst with Tony the other day, so he asked me to look into it. I did. There really is a reason why it happened."

"What is it?" I ask, curious.

"It's affecting all of us." she says. We all frown, wondering what she meant. "Not at the same rate, or the same way, but it does. The cosmic storm affected us physically, both by giving us power, but also radiation."

"Is it gamma radiation? Because I tested for it and didn't find anything when we came back." I say.

"It's not. Probably. I couldn't find what kind it was, because our earthen machines aren't calibrated for that dimension's radiations. The fact is, they affect our feelings. Our way of doing things. For Reed, you're quicker to outbursts, Johnny is more prompt to 'play around', Ben is less, and I'm focusing more than usual on my work. We don't see much of it for us three," she says, pointing at everyone but me, "because we use our powers regularly. That's why Ben was completely turned to stone at the beginning. The radiation makes it so that activating our powers is a biological function like eating or sleeping. To calm the radiation, we need to use our powers. While training, except for trying new things, you don't use your powers much. Outside of training, I never saw you use them. All of us do, even a little bit."

"So this mean I should turn to stone to go back to 'normal'?" Ben asks.

"And I should spend my time flamed on?" Johnny follows.

"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know, this is all I managed to get from all the tests. This is a new type of radiation that we can't even detect. The only way I did was thanks to Alfred, who monitored the devices and said that they detected something but couldn't accurately show it."

"So when we fight without using our powers…"

"Our feelings are amplified. That's why we felt so scared of Nat. She is scary, but not to that extent. That's why you shouted at Tony, you hadn't used your powers for a couple of days at that time. Your body was, in a way, showing symptoms of withdrawal."

"Can we get rid of these radiations?" asks Johnny.

"I can't even find them, how do you want me to remove them…" Sue sighs.

"I'll ask around to find someone to help us out. In the meantime, I guess we should use our powers more often?" I say, looking at Sue.

"That's what I would recommend yes. If we don't see any improvement in the next couple of days, we'll have to find something else."

"Everyone, if you please." Alfred calls out. "I downloaded and integrated the last part of Circe's backup into my systems. I'm now ready to get connected. You should warn Mr. Stark when you decide to do so."

"Yeah, by the way, why did you decide to give him Circe's backups? Will we be still using her when Alfred will be online? Since he'll have almost the same capabilities…" Johnny asks.

"Well, we gave Alfred the means to defend himself, and Circe is still powerful enough to protect the tower against Internet attacks, so why would we toss her away? Two is better than one, right?" I reply. "We'll be connecting you this afternoon, to give a bit of time to Tony and the rest to prepare for your arrival. I'm calling him right now," I say, taking my phone and leaving the room.

"Sue, those radiations, do they-"

"Ben, I know what you want to ask, but I can't tell you. I just don't know yet, I'm sorry." they sigh.

"Hey, I have an idea, how about I cook using my flames?" Johnny asks. "This way I'll use my flames, the radiation will be satisfied, and I'll have something to eat!"

"I mean, that could probably work." Sue says.

"Provided you don't turn everything to a crisp." Ben says, snickering.

"Haha!" Johnny laughs sarcastically. "You won't get invited when I open Johnny's Flaming Steakhouse, rubble man."

"I wouldn't go even if I were, I don't want to die incinerated while eating a lava steak."

"Lava steak… Lava steak… Hey, that works! My first item for the menu is now Lava Steak!" he shouts, running to the kitchen.

"Are you sure it's the radiation that makes him want to play around, or is he just dumb?" Ben asks Sue.

"Ben, please…" Sue sighs.

"Hey, I just called Fury, asking him if he could let us meet an expert in radiation. He said he'll send someone in the next couple of days."

"He did? He didn't ask you why?" Sue asks, perplexed.

"Well, I had to promise that it wasn't to do any experiments unsupervised on Gamma radiation, but otherwise, I'm sure he'll ask Nat anyway…"

"Do you know who he'll send?"

"I have no idea, but I'm sure it won't be Banner or Stark. Tony's pretty busy right now, and Bruce's been missing for years. I'm sure he knows where he is, but he won't have him come to such a populated area at this time."

"Alright, we'll see."

"If I might, I have run a small check, and the expert Mr. Fury might recommend could be Dr. Langkowski or Dr. Braddock." Alfred calls out.

"Okay, Reed, do their names ring a bell?" Sue asks me.

"Not really, I don't think… Oh, wait, is it Doctor Brian Braddock, from Britain?"

"Correct."

"You know him?"

"I just remember that he's a good guy and an expert in physics."

"Got it. I'm going to check up on the analysis, call me if anything happens."

"Sure, I'll see you later." I kiss her before she leaves. "Alfred, when you said small check, what did you do exactly?"

"I've checked the big names in physics and experts on radiation, and their relationships with SHIELD."

"How did you do that?"

"By checking their known locations and comparing them to known SHIELD facilities. If you're asking if I hacked into anything, I didn't. I won't hack anything unless asked by you."

"Alright. How are you finding the Internet so far?"

"Exhausting. There's so much p*rn in there… P*rn and cats… It's a miracle any of you using it get anything done."

"Haha, yeah… Sorry about that. Anyway, tell me when you're completely online and if there's anything wrong or useful for us."

"Will do, Sir."

With that out of the way, I followed Sue's medical advice, and decide to stretch a bit. I went to the training room to practice my ability. I didn't do that before, because I thought of the quote 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' I was scared that overusing my stretching ability would cause me to become too reliant on it. Seems that it didn't work as I thought.

The stretching ability by itself is pretty strong, but the key is imagination. Mine is memory. While I wasn't a fan, I've seen a couple of episodes of One Piece, and with Reed's brain, those episodes came back to me, and so did Luffy's use of his elastic power. This has become a huge inspiration for me. That and Steve teaching us combat centered around our powers. He told me that learning Wushu might be a good idea, since the martial art was pretty flexible on its own already. He told me to focus on the Chángquán style, and accompanying the techniques with an extension of my body, throwing my arms and legs with power as well as precision.

At least, that's what it should look like, but usually Chángquán Wushu is learned from a young age. I've been practicing for about two months now. Right now, I should be doing exercises to practice my form and stance, but instead, I'm trying to incorporate my power into the punches and kicks I already know. Steve told me that I should take it slow and do this part of the training when I'm good enough with the majority of the moves. According to him, this would be in about three years for a normal person. He said I should be fine with a year and a half, because of my capacity to remember the form showed in excruciating details, as well as thanks to my constitution.

After a couple of hours of practice, Natasha, who came in the room without my notice at some point asked if I wanted to do some live exercise with her to test what I've done in combat. I obliged.

We started by facing each other. She lunged for a quick right punch, which I batted away just before it touched my face. I followed by accompanying my movement to the left and trying to elbow her with my right, dodged by a small backwards step. As I turned on myself to prepare a spinning kick, Nat predicted my move and did a low sweep with her leg, to make me fall. Instead of falling, I let my leg be swept under me by turning it flexible and resting on the other one. With her leg now caught by mine, I launch a right punch towards her and a left one to my back to accumulate inertia. As I go down to punch her, as she's still on the floor, she pulls my fast approaching right fist to the ground and locks my arm with her free leg. She reaches for my neck to tase me, but before she makes contact my left arm comes back and connects with her shoulder with an audible snap. True to herself, she only lets out a grunt while the fight continues.

The power behind my punch allowed me to distance myself from her for a few seconds and catch my breath. At the same time, she does a kip up to get back on her feet, and reduces the dislocation on her left shoulder by "snapping it back". As she looks at me and pulls out a couple of knives, I shape my hands into thin short-staff like appendages. As we get ready to launch ourselves at each other's throat, Alfred calls us out.

"Mr. Richards, Ms. Romanov, sorry to interrupt, but Dr. Langkowski just called, he'll be here in around twenty minutes. You should probably get ready for him."

"Right, the Director told me about that, I'm supposed to babysit you with this guy, and prevent you from turning anyone into a monster again. Will you try to do that?" she asks, putting her knives back.

"Not really. We might have brought back radiation from the other dimension in our bodies, but since we're not experts in that field we need a second opinion. Sue found out that it might be responsible for our over the top reactions and behaviors."

"So when you were scared sh*tless of me the other day it wasn't entirely because of me then. That reassures me because I would have had to train you against Madame-type-women if you did."

"What?"

"Cos' you were so scared I could have made you my b*t-"

"OKAY. Right. It was most probably because of this radiation. Apparently we need to use our powers more to negate the effects of it. That's why Dr. Langkowski came, he'll learn more and help us understand. Shall we go?"

"Sure. After you, Mr. Richards…" I sigh. "Oh, when the welcoming is over, I'll pass by Sue's machine to check on this shoulder situation."

...

"Dr. Langkowski, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Reed Richards. This is Susan and Johnathan Storm, Benjamin Grimm and Nathalie Rushman."

"Isn't it Doctor Richards? I've read your paper on unstable molecules and it blew my mind."

"Not yet, the university is still waiting confirmation. I'm glad you enjoyed my work."

"So, what's this all about, I've received an invitation from the government to get my ass here. You've got a radiation leak or something?"

"Not exactly. See, a few months ago we opened a portal to another dimension and stepped through it. A cosmic storm hit us over there, giving us powers. We believe that we also got radiation from this storm, and it started affecting us. Since we can't detect them, we asked for an expert in radiation."

"Wait, wait, wait. Other dimension? Powers? Are you serious?! You're joking me, right?" Langkowski asks, bewildered.

"Johnny, please." Sue says. Johnny flames on, controlling his temperature to stay at room level.

"WOW! What the hell?! Is he okay?"

"Oh don't worry, I'm good. Here, it's not even that hot." Johnny replies, catching the doctor's arm.

"And you're saying you can all turn to flames?"

"No, each of us got a different power. Johnny's fire, Sue's invisibility and force fields, Ben's turning to stone, and mine is body elasticity. Natasha wasn't with us during the trip. The thing's that's bothering us is the supposed radiation. I'll give you some time to get your bearings. If you have any questions don't hesitate. We really appreciate you coming here."

"Alright… Sure… I'm going to stay here a bit…" He says, sitting on the couch, thinking.

"Nat, do you mind getting us some food? We can't let our guest starve, right?" I say, taking no small pleasure in getting even with her remark a few minutes ago.

"Of course, Mr. Richards. Normal for everyone plus a kids' menu for you as usual. Got it." she says, leaving the room. Ben snickers and Johnny laughs out loud, saying something like he'll remember this one. Dr. Langkowski didn't even register, still processing what we talked about just now.

A moment later, the food arrived and the doctor got his bearings, asking question concerning the dimension, the kind of things we've seen there, and the storm in particular. After that, while eating, we talked about our powers and Sue explained her findings, showing the results of her analysis on a tablet. He said that her insight was most probably correct, and that he'll start working with us after the meal on finding that radiation. After the big part of our concern was 'resolved', we talked about all and nothing, explaining our powers, learning about his research and how he was Bruce Banner's friend during university and then working with him up to a few months before the experiment that turned Bruce into the Hulk. He said that he was still working with gamma radiation, but to find a way to turn his friend back. As he said that, a small fleeting glint appeared in his eyes.

"So this is your lab?" he asks, looking around. "It's pretty bare, it's like no one is working here."

"That's exactly the case. It's an empty lab for guests. In the future we expect people coming back to the Baxter Foundation to work with us again, but for the moment we're the only ones left. If you need anything, you can just ask Alfred, he's our AI. I'll go get a few things to work with you here." I say, leaving to get a couple of tools.

"Same for me, I'll be right there," says Sue, who accompanies me to the elevator.

"So, what do you think?" I ask her while we're alone.

"Well, he seems nice, and he's really knowledgeable about radiation. I think he can help us. Why, you've got another opinion?"

"Not really, there's just… I don't think I would trust him that much with gamma radiation, there's something… off with him when he mentioned that subject. But we can probably work with him on our problem. I'll just keep an eye out. Alfred, if you could also check up on him from time to time. Nothing too invasive, let's keep it above the surface for now."

"Of course, Sir. Understood." As Alfred said that, we separated to get our tools and samples, and met again in Dr. Langkowski's new lab.

"So, Dr. Langkowski, how's everything?" Sue asks.

"Well, for starters, call me Walter, or Walt, since you seem to like shortening names around here, haha!" we laugh at that. I hadn't noticed but everyone but me has his name shortened, Sue, Ben, Johnny, Nat, even Steve, who everyone here calls Cap…

"Alright, then you can do the same and call us however you want, Walt." She answers, smiling.

"No, but seriously, this place is amazing, how is it that no one other than you guys work here?"

"Well, we have had a couple of big explosions and failures. The last problem ended with three people dead. Just a few weeks ago a swarm of killer robots attacked the building, and to protect the Baxter name, we said it was a gas leak. Not a lot of people trust the Baxter Foundation to protect their building, workplace, and lives… We hope to change that but it will take some time. You're more than welcome to stay as long as you need, though. If you're not too scared of all that, that is."

"Oh, you know, I've had my share of experiments gone wrong as well, it's part of science, right?"

"That it is… well, shall we get started?"

"Alright, that's all the sample that I've gotten. I can always get new ones, but I think it's a good start."

"It sure is, let me see what you've got." he says, looking at the samples Sue displays on a desk. "Uh, uh. Okay. Great! You've done an amazing job, I've got practically nothing to do, here! It's all labeled and explained clearly in the corresponding document, the hypothesis is proper and makes sense… What am I here for, then, haha!" he laughs, we smile awkwardly. "Yeah, I know, don't worry you guys. Reed, you've brought some tools, what are they for? Are they for me?" he opens his arms to get them.

"Yeah, I figured since we can't detect those radiations with the tools we have, we might have to build a machine that can, so here are some stuff to help with that. If you need a hand in that area, I'm your guy." I mean, I literally have a backlog of tools and machines waiting to be built and improved upon in my head and on my computer…

"Alright. Tell me everything about that dimension. And I do mean everything. I want details this time." And so, we talk about it, explaining in details our thought process, the portal, the dimensions, the readings we got, the samples we took, the numbers we received, the things we saw and experienced, everything. After that, Sue explained once more her working theory on the radiation, the results of the analysis, and presented the samples she took from us. Finally, we got started.

First on theory, how we could manage anything with something that doesn't belong in this dimension, but is stuck here, affecting us. We needed to be able to see, detect, sense it. We started working on different versions of ionization chambers, detectors and counters, as well as other tools used to detect and measure radiation. We looked at the theory and science behind them, applied that science to what we knew from Dimension Zero, and ended up with a couple of gadgets that didn't work for our purpose, but could always be useful later.

Those gadgets included a portable radiation detector, working with all types of radiation and detecting it miles away with pinpoint accuracy in the point hundred thousands. We decided to put a patent for it and sell it at near cost price, as this kind of device could save lives in the hundreds every year, and should not be sold for profit. It temporarily bore both of our names, Langkowski-Richards, while we waited for input from our friends [{AN: friends and readers, wink, wink}].

After a couple of weeks, we finally had something. We finally detected the radiation from Dimension Zero. The research on this radiation being ionizing vs non-ionizing proved right, as we found our radiation using a modified Geiger counter, in the direct opposite range of Alpha Radiation. Since it was almost exactly the opposite numbers and range, we decided to call it Omega Radiation for the purpose of our analysis and future work on it. Now that we could detect it, came the time to test Sue's theory.

Ben and Johnny both asked to be a volunteer for the experiment, but we decided that all of us would do it instead. Since the experiment consisted of measuring everyone's radiation level, using or not using our powers daily, and measuring again the radiation. This would be going on for a week, with Johnny and Ben using their power as often as possible, and Sue and I using them as little as we could. Everyone got ready for the first measurement, one at a time, done by Walt with only one of us in the room at the measure, to avoid "contaminating" the results. Soon, the results were written down, and the experiment could finally begin.


	10. Chapter Ten: Press Conference N2

This was a very long week for Sue and I. Sue didn't catch a lot of sleep or rest, almost always working on her machine, and I became unbearable really quickly, losing my nerve for anything in no time. She got productive at the start, but her productivity declined by the day with her lack of energy, but still tried to work. After the third day, I decided to isolate myself, to avoid fighting with everyone and saying things I didn't mean. At that point we realized that the side effect was real, but we weren't sure that they were caused by the radiation until the results of the measures were calculated.

After that week, we went to the training room and spent a couple of hours overusing our powers like never before. Sue lasted a couple of hours before fainting from exertion and sleep deprivation. As she fell down, she still became invisible, but fortunately her sweat was visible, so I was able to find her 'relatively easily' and bring her to our bed before coming back down and transforming again and again until I fell unconscious as well.

The next morning, after Sue woke up and turned visible again, we went to Walt's lab to get the results. During this week, while Ben and Johnny's radiation level went down steadily the more they used their powers, our radiation level doubled as each day passed without using them. We didn't find any negative side effects with them, but ours were definitely real.

"Whelp, now you know. The less you use your powers, the more you get affected by the radiation. The more you use them, the less radiation you emit. Since using your powers is not that much of a hassle, I imagine, I don't think I can do much more to help you guys. I've gotten plenty of inspiration though, so I'll go back to my home lab and do some stuff again."

"Thank you again Walt, we loved having you here. Those few weeks were pretty fun." Says Ben, shaking Walt's hand. "Will you be coming back?"

"I don't see why not? I mean, I'll probably be cooped up for a while, but if I take a vacation or you need my help I'll be there. I had fun as well!" Walter answers.

"And to you as well, if you need a hand in something, I've studied a bit the gamma radiation after learning about Dr. Banner, so don't hesitate to call me." I say, with the idea to keep an eye on him with that. I don't think he will call, but better ask than not.

"I'll be sure to do that. I'll pick up my things and leave soon, while everything is still fresh. Alfred, do you mind booking me a flight?"

"It's done, a taxi will be taking you in about an hour."

"God I want one of you." he says, muttering under his breath.

"You know, we still have a couple of AIs we could give you. I tend to overdo it sometimes…" and an AI in his lab could be very useful indeed.

"I'll think about it, but I appreciate the thought. Alright, see you guys. It was a pleasure." he says, shaking everyone's hands before leaving to pack up his room.

"So, we use our powers? That's it? That's the cure?" Johnny asks.

"Well, basically yes. You can consider it a muscle, so you need to use it, but don't overdo it and pass out from exhaustion." Sue answers, looking once more over the data. "A good thing to do would be like that small exercise they tell you to do to help have abs, tensing your abdominal muscles every time you take stairs or pass through a door. Take a small gesture that you can do easily and quickly, and add fire to it. What I'm doing is basically turn my foot plant invisible as much as I can. No one can see me doing it, including me, but I know it's there. For you you can turn your hair fiery or something. Ben can take a few hours everyday turned to stone. I've seen Reed take his arm and twist them around his body to have them in a knot but still use them."

"That's stupid." Says Johnny, whose hair is now on fire.

"It looks better than your head though. Be careful not to burn the building down by passing through doors, please." I say, the hint of a smile on my face. While he leaves the room grumbling, I turn to face Ben. "I'm really sorry, Ben. I hoped I would be able to help you get your powers under control, but it seems I can't do anything against a parasitic radiation yet. It doesn't mean I'll stop trying, though. You can bet on it."

"Yeah, Reed. Don't worry, I know. Thanks for trying anyway. Don't put your head in a knot for me, It's good enough that I can turn human for most of the day. If the price for it is using my powers a bit, then that's not too bad. Can you imagine a world where I'd be forced to live like that for a whole year? That would suck! Haha," he laughs with a small sad undertone.

"I'll do my best so that it doesn't happen, Benjamin. You have my word."

"And mine as well," Sue adds.

{[AN: and my axe…}]

"Thank you guys, I appreciate it. I'm gonna go clobber some stuff real quick in the training room. I'll see you later." As we watch him leave, sue turns to me, a serious look on her face.

"We need to help him."

"I know."

"No, we have to help him. Right now. He doesn't show it, but it affected him way more than it should have. He's ready to go break some stuff instead of going to meditate which would have been his first thought a few days ago. He's going into a destructive behavior, that's a sign of depression."

"Sue."

"What?"

"I know. Learning that all we did with his meditation turned out to be almost useless and detrimental for him put a dent in his confidence. But that's not all there is to it."

"What is it then?"

"His crush just left."

"His crush? I don't get- oh. OOOHH. His crush! Walt is!"

"Yup."

"So… Ben is.."

"Yup."

"I'm so happy! When did he tell you?"

"He didn't. He hasn't told anyone yet. I'm pretty sure Nat has hard suspicions if not complete certainty though."

"Should we do something?"

"Why would you do something? He has to be ready. If you come onto him too strongly he might not appreciate it. Let's just give him a bit of space for now. If he's not back to his usual self in a few days we'll see if we need to do something. Right now, he needs space and time."

"Okay. I guess you're right. How long have you known?"

"I've had suspicions for a while, but seeing his reaction to Steve and Walt made me certain."

"Understandably. Those men are just-..." she sees the look I give her. "Just delightful individual, who wouldn't like discussing science and combat with them like colleagues?" I sigh.

"Sure. Anyway, I'll go set up the patents and ask Nat to get ready to do a new press conference."

"What for? Isn't it a little lacking just for the Riski Rad?"

"I told you we wouldn't call it that… And no, it's about time we show the unstable molecules to the world. The Ris- The device will also be presented at the same time." she smirks.

"You almost called it Riski Rad."

"Yes I did, it's your fault, you're all repeating it over and over like a bunch of Koahlas or something."

"Koalas don't talk? What are you saying?"

"I don't know. I'll set the patent and go train a bit, my brain is getting muddled," I say, leaving the room. As the elevator doors close, I shout: "And we're not calling it Riski Rad!"

A few days later, the press conference was at full blast. After a short introduction by Natasha, I once again took the floor to present the first invention, the RDU, short for Radiation Detection Unit.

"Mr. Richards! Mr. Richards!"

"Yes, Ms. Everhart."

"Can you tell us why this device is better than anything else in the market? And more importantly why it has a Koala symbol at the back of it?"

"The device detects radiations of pretty much all nefarious kinds with a range of around fifty meters for the least dangerous, and a couple of kilometers for the more dangerous. And for the koala, which should be a detail and not the most important part of your question, it's just a small design choice. The belly fur of a koala can reflect solar radiation after all, so it's like a good luck charm." Some journalists chuckle at my reply. "The most important point is that the device will be sold at cost price. This is Dr. LAngkowski's sill as well as mine. We hope that this way, more people will be able to buy one and protect their loved one from radiation. As always, if you have questions, I would like to redirect you to our automated mail, inquiry with the subject PressSept2010, as written behind me." I say, leaving a small blank for a few seconds. "Now, I know that some of you won't be satisfied with just a life saving device sold at cost price, so we prepared something else for this conference." I gesticulate, asking Sue to bring a couple of clothes racks on stage. "While I'm not well versed in fashion, I am somewhat of a scientist. Lately, I've made great strides towards researching a specific molecule which has an unlimited number of use."

"Is it linked to the paper on unstable molecule that was released in your name a few weeks ago?"

"As I said, please direct your question to the mailbox. But yes. The paper I've written was about the theoretical existence of such a molecule. A couple of weeks ago, that molecule became a reality. I'm here to present to you the first real-life application of such a molecule, the unstable molecule clothing. While they don't look like much, the clothes here could all be considered to be 'smart' in some ways. This one for example," I point to a school uniform, "is resistant to scratch, tear, and grime to an unfathomable point. Should it be dirtied, though, it can just go in a washing machine like any normal piece of clothing and come back to its original clean state. This one," I say, pulling on a small baby onesies, "changes color around certain areas when detecting humidity or abnormal odors, while not releasing them in the atmosphere, making it so that you can know your baby needs to be changed without needing to put your nose in it. It is also tear resistant and can go in the machine. Basically, most of the clothes here are tear resistant and can go in the washing machine easily. Some of them have certain particularities, like for example, this uniform," I point to the fire-fighter uniform "is capable of resisting fire up to the melting point of stainless steel, which is around 1500° Celsius, or around 2700° Fahrenheit. The most peculiar piece of clothing though, is this here." I take out the highlight of the show. "This gray suit is not only tear resistant and washable, but it grows with its wearer. If you don't like the design, the suit comes with an integrated port that connects it to an application. On the application, you can choose between several included designs, create your own or purchase other creators and brand's designs. Here, let me show you." I say, pulling out my phone, whose screen is also projected behind me. "By going into the app, touching the connection port with your device, the two of them are now synchronized." I touch a small point on my shoulder, and my suit turns from dark blue to light blue for less than a second. "This means the suit and app are connected. Now, if I were to say that this suit is too formal, I would just tap on the suit I like, download it, and once it's downloaded, ask my suit to take the design. "I wait for the download to finish.

The download would be instantaneous if not for the fact that we're giving some time to the reporters here to breathe and take notes. The last few minutes since I presented the suits were frantic, with some of them unable to stay silent and audibly gasp or try to call their boss to get an exclusive.

"Sorry about the delay, it seems the WI-FI here isn't what it used to be, haha." After a few more seconds, when most of the reporters calmed down, the download is finished. I install the design on the suit, press 'Deploy', and my suit now transforms into a comfortable sportswear. "As you can see, the installation takes only a few seconds. The few designs that we have on the app are the ones we came up with, and are all included in the price of the suit. If you lose your phone, the suit won't turn off. The suit is linked to the account which you'll be given when buying the plain suit. Losing your phone only means reconnecting the account to a new phone, and syncing the suit to the new phone. The suit will come in three sizes. The first will be infant, the second adolescent, and the third large. The price will be different between infant, adolescent and large. $250, $450 and $600 respectively. While the price is steep, it aims at reducing the number of clothes bought by everyone. For poorer countries, a different suit is in production which will be sold at cost price later next year. These clothes are created to grow with their wearer, as I've said multiple times. The cotton production is a very resource intensive process, using gargantuan amounts of water and producing enormous amounts of pollution around the world. Same for all synthetic kinds of clothes. Ours uses recycled plastic and electricity. The plastic is transformed using electricity into this unstable molecule, capable of changing with small electronic inputs. Buying three or four suits, even just two for that matters, is theoretically all you would need from your infancy to your old age, instead of the hundreds or thousands of items of clothing you would buy during your lifetime. We aim at reducing consumption, pollution, and give everyone a chance to wear whatever they want for a fixed price. The different clothes we have on stage are destined to different types of institutions. School uniforms will be for those private schools which usually prefer one or two types of uniforms, the firefighter uniform will be for, well firefighters. We have other kinds of uniforms in mind which we'll soon be discussing with the specific institutions. This includes in priority all emergency services, the Firefighters, the Police, and the medical community. More information will be available concerning the publically available suits on the automated mailbox and on our website, which is behind me right now. I'll leave you tonight with a bit of an insight into what my team is working on. Ms. Susan Storm is working on a medical device, while Mr. Johnny Storm and Mr. Ben Grimm are working on a device to reinforce infrastructures. Sorry, I know it's very cryptic, but where would be the fun of those press conferences otherwise?"

"Dr. Richards! Why do you refuse questions during those press conferences? They seem more like press releases than conferences to me," said a journalist.

"You are..?"

"Ben Urich, New York Bulletin."

"Well, Mr. Urich, thank you for your question. I'm not a doctor, yet, the university has yet to pass their verdict. I tend to refuse questions because I found that they are a waste of time for me and my team, who could be working on our research. The information you would want to know would be available to you and anyone on our website, and specific questions can be answered by our mailbox, it's redundant at this point to add questions to that. But you're right, it does look more like press releases. I'll allow a few questions at the end of the next press conference," he raises his hand and open his mouth. "And yes, I'll see with my assistant to book a few interviews in the next few days. Thank you everyone, have a good night." I say, leaving the stage, taking a few of the clothes with me while Sue took the rest and followed me.

"Well, the first conference went better. Should I contact Mr. Ulrich for an interview? He seemed more insightful than Ms. Everhart."

"Sure. I have a good feeling about the Bulletin anyway. Yeah, tell him to come up right now or when he can next week."

"Alright." Nat says, giving me a glass of water before going to talk to the man in question. A few minutes later, Alfred informs me that he is willing to do an interview right now. I tell Nat through Alfred that I'll meet him in the lounge.

"Well, I wasn't expecting you to accept an interview so quickly, what changed your mind?"

"HOnestly and off the record, I find that most of the journalists are only interested in the sensational and are not as dedicated to subjects as you are, Mr. Urich. Though, I must admit that I'm curious as to why the Bulletin would send someone like you to out press event. I would assume that you would keep working on Hell's Kitchen and the criminal empires around it."

"Well, my editor was pushing me to take your story, and since we've been fighting between us for months, I said I would do him a favor in exchange for me continuing my crime ring story. So, here I am."

"And despite 'my story' being a favor to your boss, you are dedicated enough to actually take the time to research the paper I released despite not being in the scientific field, or know that I applied for a Doctorate. That's what changed my mind, Mr. Urich."

"And I'm surprised as well that you would know of me."

"Your name holds weight in the Bulletin, which all of us here in the Baxter building read. And it helps that I have an assistant well versed in information gathering." I laugh.

"Shall we get started?" he says, pulling out a recorder and his notepad.

"Let's do this."

"I'm Ben Urich, for the New York Bulletin, here with Mr. Reed Richards, from the Baxter Foundation after the latest press conference in which you unveiled a device to detect a high number of radiation from a large range, as well as revolutionized the field of fashion and clothing at the same time as proving your paper on unstable molecules. Where should I start?..."


	11. Chapter Eleven, Interview and Names

"Let's start with what our readers might be more interested in. As I was saying, with your unstable molecules, you have created a kind of clothing that, according to you, will grow with its wearer."

"That is the goal, yes." I answer succinctly.

"You were also saying that you were using recycled plastic as a source to create it. This made me think about all the different kinds of materials others clothes are made of. Let's put a hypothetical out there, that everyone buys your products and stops buying all the other kinds of clothes. How do you address the problem that all these clothes become waste, and all the materials and jobs surrounding those materials become useless for the former and useless for the latter?"

"Well, I said that we used recycled plastic to avoid creating waste, it would be irrational to not have taken that into account. We have used plastic because it was one of the cheapest materials available to us at that point, but we could use wool, latex, fur, polyester, etc., we just didn't have the available sources to do so. If one of our products is defective, it can be reused as the main material for another product. As for the jobs, while a machine transforms one product to another, all that goes around that is left to the human, so new jobs will be created. We could use automation to take our products in and out, but we won't, because that would create more pollution until all the electricity used on earth is renewable."

"But, these clothes, since the aim is for one person to only need three or four during their lifetime, it means that it will ultimately rely on a specific number, like 28 billion. Once you've created enough clothes for everyone, what will happen to the machines?"

"One good thing about unstable molecules is that it has just been discovered. Plastic was discovered over a 100 years ago, and we still find new uses for it. Clothing is just one application of this molecule, and that was just one person thinking about the uses. Now that my research is out there and the molecule has been proven to exist, the scientific community will look for other uses, and we won't be shy with providing the machines to those scientists to experiment." At this, Mr. Urich scribbled a few notes for a moment.

"Coming back to clothing. We discussed the hypothetical that everyone buys your suits. Do you think the brands and clothing industries will let you sell your clothes and destroy their multi million industry easily? I wouldn't go as far as asking if they would try to assassinate you but don't you think they will try to bury your product?"

"We actually have been contacted by a small number of them that wanted information about the app and the way it worked to create designs and sell them. We also received a huge number of threats as well. Including a couple of death threats. All of that was in the first twenty minutes after the conference. Also, while our suits can change shape, we can't yet turn them lighter or warmer, so you would need another type of clothing for summer or winter. For this we planned leaving it to the industry in place, just replacing their main material from what they used to unstable molecules."

"How would that work?"

"We first thought of creating everything ourselves, but we're a bunch of scientists. Not designers. So instead, we created a model of factory that could be used by other manufacturers. We'll be selling a few of those machines in the coming months. We would be selling our suit as a base model while their would still be competing products. Just using the same material. We will be releasing a creator package that includes the suite to create clothes and add features to them. We talked about smart clothing but it's still limited to two or three features. The main feature of our suit is its ability to change models through a connection point. All basic clothes we'll be making are also machine washable and tear resistant. We can make some fireproof, odor absorbent, shock reducing, bulletproof to a degree, transpirant, breathable, water resistant, transparent, color changing, heating or chilling, etc. but not at the same time. We limit our models by adding the two we chose as basic to one more feature, but the other sellers might choose different feature combinations. We don't want to destroy an industry or competition, but shift their practices to be more eco-responsible and use a truly economical material."

"I don't think they will take it that way, and the threats seem to indicate that."

"That's true, but it was my second ever press conference, and as you said earlier, it wasn't much of a conference. I forgot to say a lot of points that should have been said. I'm banking on your interview not being too overtly redacted and cut, haha." We laugh a bit. "But more seriously, We'll be releasing a statement concerning all the good points you've just underlined on our website after your interview is published. Hopefully tomorrow morning. I'll also take a few more interviews in the coming week to address further questions. We'll be meeting a number of industry professionals as well."

"Thank you for the exclusive. Now, you've so far created an autonomous flying electric car, a clothing that changes shape with the click of a button, and a device to detect all kinds of radiations. How can you explain the width between all of these inventions?"

"The car was because we had an idea that would have been pretty cost-effective. The clothing was to answer a scientific interrogation. The radiation detecting device was because, a few months ago, my team and I suffered an incident during an experiment, and we got hit by radiation, but we didn't know until recently. With the help of Dr. Langkowski, we created a device to let us know which radiation it was and help us figure a way to cure us. The result is this RDD. We have a lot of inventions in mind, some of them centered around our team member's specialties, some from the entire team."

"Can you give me an insight into what those might be?"

"The next two inventions probably won't be as controversial as the suit. That's all I can tell you."

"I'll take it. Thank you for your time, Dr. Richards." He cuts the recorder.

"As I told you, I'm no doctor yet." we rise from the chairs.

"I know, but it should be coming up pretty soon. I'm sure they were just dubious concerning your research, but with the end product in hand they won't be able to say that it's bullcr*p. I've talked to my editor, and he agreed to delay the print till I've given my piece, so the interview should be published by tomorrow morning. I just need to get to work to get someone to help me put in the form. Thank you again for your time."

"And thank you for your questions, they were most revealing as to the fact that we need an assistant in communication to prevent that fiasco again. I'll take you to the door." I say, accompanying him and chit-chatting about his various articles, including the one about the Harlem Terror a few years ago. After that, I went back to the team to talk about the interview and the next steps to follow.

Preparing ourselves for what was to come, we invited Hogarth to the table, as our lawyer. At that point we would definitely need a good one. The few couple of weeks after that were hectic, the team working on their stuff while leaving me to deal with all the executive decisions and installation or re-purposing of factories. The good thing was that after the interview and more details were revealed, we received noticeably fewer threats. The bad thing was I kept getting overworked.

Finally, late into October, I was pretty much done with setting everything up, and the suits were starting to sell. The uniforms were another thing, and was going to take longer because of the importance of the product. No one wanted to get rushed product, but everyone wanted it now, so it was a bit more complicated. We were chilling in the lounge after a long sparring session, watching The Empire Strikes Back, one of the things Cap had to catch up on, when Alfred interrupted the movie.

"Excuse me, everyone, I think you should see that." He said, pausing the movie and showing the news, with videos of a battle between what the anchorman was calling two men in iron suits. "By the information available, it would seem that the red suit is Tony Stark while the darker one is Obediah Stane." The four of us look at each other, while Steve is glued to the screen, muttering about Starks and their technology.

"So this is where Nat went…" Ben said.

"Right. I should get going as well. I'll see you guys later," Steve follows, leaving the room in a rush.

"That's quite shocking… I mean, you told us about it, but…" Sue says.

"Right. That's the first time a major event you predicted would happen actually… happened…" Johnny continues;

"It's… quite the wake up call." Ben finishes.

"Right. That's true. Well, now you know it's not all mambo jambo anymore. It also shows that the timeline is still en route and that major events should still happen." I say. "How close are you two from finishing the device you've been working on?"

"We're not quite there yet. It uses tremendous amounts of energy. The only thing we can think of to power it is the Arc reactor you told us about. We would need about 1.3 Gigajoules per building. It's extremely inefficient for now. It works, but it's a waste of power."

"Alright, good. Keep working on it occasionally, make it a secondary objective until I can contact Tony to let us borrow some, or work with us to better it. Try to find something else in the meantime as a main project. Sue?"

"I'm basically done. The materials are a bit expensive though, so unless we find a cheaper alternative it won't be as accessible as I had hoped."

"We'll check it out. Alfred will also look into it, I'm sure it can extrapolate and do a lot of simulation using different materials and alloys."

"Already on it, Sir." Alfred adds.

"Good. I'm going to check on your servers and the original machine, to see if I can find out what happened."

"You don't want to see how the fight ends?" Johnny asks.

"I already know…" I say, leaving them in the lounge. Armed with renewed motivation, I get to work to examine the changes made by the unstable molecule machine to the electronics inside of Alfred's servers. During that time, he isolates whatever I'm working on from the rest to make sure nothing happens to him. If I can understand the changes, maybe I'll unlock a new use for the machine, even solve the guys' power deficiency problem. After all, Alfred should be using much more power than is actually the case. And I do mean a lot more. His mensual consumption is around 10 times less than it should be. Instead of 12 MW, he's currently running around 1.3 MW at peak. If I can find out what makes that happen, I can try and apply it to all things reliant on energy. And that's just the energy part. When the machine was on, the improvement was constant. Its power consumption as well as processing were improving.

After a while, Sue comes in to try and convince me to stop a bit. When I ask her why, Alfred tells me the date. I had been working on it for 20 hours straight. She tells me that Stark called a press conference and revealed itself to the world, as I had told them in advance. I feel so close to understanding what made the part I was working on change, but I understand that my body and mind need rest. I follow her to sleep a bit. Two days later, I'm back to it. I slept for a while, but the next day I went to train, using my powers so as to avoid a relapse, as Alfred warned me that my radiation level was a bit high.

Finally, I make a small breakthrough. I found out that a part of the circuitry which was originally copper has changed. Analyzing it, it seems to be a new kind of metal, an alloy between copper and whatever the machine made. This alloy is the key for the energy and processing power. It makes information goes a tiny bit faster than using fiber optic, but also losing much less energy than a normal copper wire. Testing it out, it seems that the delay is around 10 milliseconds and the energy loss is only about 0.3 to 0.5%.

"Alfred, turn on a new simulation matrice. Using copper wire as a base and what we know the end result is, try and find out the best parameters for the unstable molecule machine. If you need to experiment, I authorize you to test it out on the top floor, making sure that no one is three floors under it."

"Will do, Sir. We haven't named the alloy yet, do you have something in mind?"

"Not yet. It's not a creation for now. It's a discovery. Once we can make it, I'll probably name it unstable copper or something along those lines."

"I don't think you should name it such, the "unstable" part of the name wouldn't inspire people to trust it."

"Right. How about Alfium?"

"It would be an honor, Sir."

"Call me when you're done, I'm going to take a shower."

"I am, Sir. The simulation is done and stable at 99.987%. Shall I proceed with a sample?"

"Already? Alright, sure. Where's everyone?"

"Ms. and Mr. Storm are in Ms. Storm's lab, for a check-up. Mr. Grimm is in the guest lab."

"Call them, and tell Ben to bring a prototype for their device. We'll be testing the cable on it."

"Very well, Sir."

A few minutes later, the four of us are together, watching the video feed of the unstable molecule machine in the top floor. We're waiting for it to either blow up, change something it shouldn't, or finish the cable. Seconds later, we have our answer with a large noise. Or regular noise, except we were extremely silent during that time so the small *ding* the machine made when the cable was done appeared to us as a large noise.

"I'll get it!" says Johnny, flaming on and running to the window. He comes back a few seconds later with a roll of cable in his hands, which are no longer alight. While Ben and Johnny take most of the cable and line it up in their prototype, Sue and I take a small part of it to check it out.

"So you called Alfium because you discovered it in Alfred's circuits?"

"I mean, yes. I was originally going to call it unstable copper, but he said-"

"That's a terrible name. He was right." I sigh.

"If you want, we can market it as a more powerful optical cable, saying the name Alfium comes from Alfheim, home to the Light Elves, since optical cable conduct information near light speed. Since it's energy efficient and creates very little pollution, we can market it as an eco-responsible material. And knowing that in the legends Alfheim is a kingdom of enchanted forests and beautiful gardens, we can use a tree as a logo. Or we can even use the World Tree, Yggdrasill as a catch all, further dividing everything into nine categories, Alfheim being centered on ecology." A silence follows what I say. "What's going on? Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Sir, I think they are shocked by your ability to spin a terrible name into a great one," answers Alfred. "And I believe it would make more sense to call it as such as well. I don't care much about the recognition anyway, knowing that you had me in mind at first is good enough for me."

"Thanks. And thank you guys for the vote of confidence."

"Alfred, can you call Jeri Hogarth and tell her to create a subsidiary to Baxter Foundation, calling it Yggdrasill. I want that company to have nine branches as well, using the different Norse names for each of them. We'll do as Reed said and market the cable as Alfium using Alfheim as a brand. The logo will be the World Tree, and each product, depending on where they belong, will have their origin's symbol high-lighted on the logo." Sue asks Alfred. "I hope it's not too late to market the suit from one of them."

"Which one should we choose, professor Richards, specialist in Norse mythology?" says Johnny, sarcastically.

"Well for the firemen uniforms, you can decide between Jotunheim or Muspelheim, one is considered the Ice world, the other the Fire world. If you want protection against fire, then Jotun. If you want fire resistance, Muspel. For the police and military, let's go with Nidavellir, the Forge which created Gods' weapons and armors. For the normal suits Midgard should be fine, and we can go with Asgard for the luxury brands who associate with us. Is it alright with you, dear student of mine?" I ask sarcastically as well.

"Well, we should do Muspelheim for the firemen, that leaves us Jotunheim for cold resistant clothes, or winter wear." Sue says, choosing for us, before gently slapping us both behind the head using her power. "And stop that, both of you."

"I'm done," says Ben, holding the completed prototype. "Shall we plug it in?"

"Alfred, monitor the power drain and compare it to the last prototype. Ben, whenever you're ready." Ben then takes a deep breath, takes a special multimeter and plugs the device, before turning it on.

"Estimating… 90… 100… 120… It's plateauing around 130 Megajoules. Congratulations Mr. Richards, you've invented a new metal alloy. Mr. Storm and Mr. Grimm, your device requires 10 times less power now, and the simulations shows that the shield it would create should be around 11% stronger." At that, we all celebrate. This alloy could potentially be used everywhere, communication, transport, energy, internet… and for a cheaper price. Alfred told me that during simulations, the original material didn't matter, we could turn plastic into alfium as easily as transforming copper. The applications of it are endless. Now, knowing that their device can potentially be powered by wind power instead of the arc reactor makes it actually viable. The whole group is ecstatic, until Sue wakes us up.

"Reed. We can't use it or publish it, yet."

"What? Why?" Johnny asks.

"We've miscalculated the impact of the suits, we can't do the same with this. If we received death threats for nudging one industry, what do you think would happen when we release this? I don't think a few death threats will be a problem, what could be a problem is the fact that they would actually try to kill us to get it this time. We need to think about this very carefully. Now we need allies. We can't do this on our own. We're making progress as the Baxter Foundation, but we're nowhere ready to tackle every industry in a big way. We need a chaperon, or several."

"Do you have someone in mind?" Ben asks. She sighs.

"I have a couple of ideas, but we need to think about it. Let's call Jeri to the table, she needs to be here as well." Sue says. "We'll talk more about it when she gets here. For now, let's celebrate a bit, this is a success after all…"


	12. Chapter Twelve, Science Bros

"So, what is it that was so important for you to call me twice in one afternoon and even make me come here? The company you wanted me to create from scratch was already starting to give me a headache and I had given that to do to an assistant. Why am I here?"

"We created a metallic alloy that can reduce energy consumption of any electronic device ten times, and is slightly faster in transmitting information than optic cables."

"..."

"We were originally going to publish a pa-" I say, before getting interrupted.

"THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! You want to die so badly? Is that it?! Putting an entire industry out of job wasn't enough for you that you decided to kill off every other one at the same time!?"

"That's why we called you." Sue says, a smirk on her face as she looks at me. Fine, you win that round, woman. "We thought better than doubling down on our last miscalculation."

"And you escaped hell just for thinking that. Who decided to call me? Because that person deserved to be made leader of your little band and given due respect from now on." Everyone looks at Sue from the side. "Well, well, well. Looks like someone's got the beauty and the smarts to go with it. I'm glad at least one of you has any sort of common sense."

"We thought- Sue thought it would be better to have someone to support us when we make that discovery public."

"And she's right, you're too small at the moment to drop such a nuclear bombshell on the world. You need allies, a chaperon. You've got any ideas yet, or you just wanted me to do the thinking for you?" The shark-... the lawyer asks.

"I thought of calling at the very least Stark Industries, Tesla and Toyota. For the rest I thought you would know better, you've been in the business of, well businesses far longer than us."

"Why does it have to be Stark? You've got dirt on him or something?" We look the other way. "Wait, you do? What is it?"

"It's not dirt, per se. He… Sort of owe us a favor." I say.

"Alright. Anyway, that's a start. Stark Industries has its fingers in quite the large pie, so it should be a huge help to you. Tesla's just starting up though… But it sure would help them quite a lot. And for now not a lot of competition is doing electric cars yet, but if they did, you could have called them as well. Oh, wait a second, they aren't yet, but some car manufacturers are definitely looking into it. Your stuff might help them tremendously, and it might just give them enough edge to become competitive in the energy aspect. That's a huge market that's waiting for you there, You just gotta find the right umbrella. Toyota is certainly wider than Tesla. What else? You were talking about energy. What do you think of Roxxon, Exxon, Chevron, Total etc.?" we all shake our heads at that comment. "No? Well what about MidAmerican, NextEra, Vestas, Dong?" None of us know those names. So we voice our lack of knowledge. "Seriously? You mean to tell me that you wanted to stop pollution without knowing who could help you with that? I've been looking for partners for a while now. Anyway. We'll contact those four then. They aren't at the heel of any of the first four, but all of them might just make a bit of shade for you to hide under. I'll also look up the largest copper wire manufacturers, see which of them can help you. Alright, the next was communication/information. One the one side you've got telecommunication, all Verizon, At&T etc, on the other you've got all the computer manufacturer, especially those doing advance calculation stuff. I don't know enough about that, but I'm sure an assistant of mine can compile me a list." At that point, she looks at us again. Seeing our lost faces and empty looks, she sighs. "In short, I've got a lot of research to do. You can go and contact Stark. He'll tell you when to call Toyota and Tesla. I'll work on other possible allies on my side. Do tell him to keep in touch with me on this, we might need to work together to avoid bad blood between some of your future allies," we nod. "You did good calling me, it could have gone bad on an interstellar scale in a matter of seconds after your paper went out the door." she says as she rises from the table. "Dammit I won't be getting my beauty sleep anytime soon with all of this sh*t," she mutters, leaving the room."

"..."

"Well that was quite an earful. What do we do?" Johnny asks, trying to get his bearings after this extremely quick monologue. While it might have seemed long, she was speaking way faster than usual, making even Sue dizzy from the speed of her speech and volume of information she released.

"We do what she said. We call Tony." I say.

"We should probably give him a room or something at this point. And don't worry, I'll call him this time. He might still be a bit bitter from the last time."

"Thank you, Sue. I appreciate it. I'll make it up to him by giving him a roll of alfium when he comes by, to apologize." About two hours later, Alfred told me that Tony would be coming by in the week, since he was a bit busy at the moment. Which makes sense, with all of the attention on him after his coming out. So after working out a few kinks of the production of alfium, we decided to line all of our current equipment with it, and plug the original machine again so that it can finish turning the cable in Alfred' servers to it. Once this is done —under heavy supervision of course— we'll unplug the machine and disassemble it to see what made it do that in the first place.

While working on it during that week, Tony showed up. He was over the moon with the attention he was receiving, and full of ideas to upgrade his suit. He couldn't stop talking about it with Ben and Johnny, who came by the entrance to welcome him. Once he saw me, he quieted down a bit, scrunched his nose and raised his head. Before he could say anything, I engaged the conversation.

"Tony, I'm sorry for the last time. The radiation was affecting my emotions, but I should never have acted like that. I apologize. I have a gift for you, which is also why we called you."

"Oh. Okay. I was going to say that you were wrong and should apologize, but I'm glad we're on the same page. Now, I heard gift, where is it?"

"It's upstairs, come on in." said Sue, by my side. She looks at me. "Alfred called Jeri, she should be here in about an hour or so."

"So, the radiation thing you talked about during the press release was true? Why didn't you say you had powers?" Tony asks. "And did you solve the problem? Are you going to lash out at me because I didn't put on slippers when going in your lab? What was so important that you had to call for me despite knowing I was so busy? Why can't I stop asking questions? Can someone help me by answering at least one? I can't-" I interrupt him.

"Yes, the radiation thing was true. We got affected by the radiation when we got our powers. It's become like an organ now. If we don't use our powers, we get withdrawal symptoms affecting our emotions and thought processes." Sue follows up.

"We didn't talk about our powers because the world is not ready, and we aren't either. We didn't solve the problem as much as mitigated it, like we did with the Lithium for you." she says. And I can't help but see one of his eyebrow twitch at the mention of this. It seems he noticed what we were about to talk about later could call on that favor. Johnny speaks up.

"Slippers I don't know, but you've got to put on protective covers for your shoes if you don't want to remove them. He calls them booties. I think you couldn't stop asking questions because you're full of adrenaline every day because you can fly in a suit of armor and shoot at things with blasters in your arms and do you mind if I try it because I can fly on my own but I'm sure it's not the same thing and-" Ben cuts him off.

"Hey Matchstick, quit it."

"Thank you Ben," I say, pausing for a bit to let everyone breathe. "As for why you're here, it's in there. And no, I don't have protective covers or booties in my lab, that would be a Marvin move and I'm not a Marvin." We step in it, and I direct him to my desk, on which a roll of Alfium is sitting. "There it is. This is my present to say sorry. And why we called you here." He looks at it from afar, with an eyebrow raised, clearly underwhelmed.

"That's… What is it?"

"It's called Alfium. It's a new metallic alloy. Copper and unstable molecules. A tiny bit faster than optic cable, and reduces energy consumption by ten times. Packet loss minimal, in information and power. You're welcome." During my very quick presentation, his face morphed from disbelief to awe to inquisitive and back to awe before settling on a neutral appearance.

"So. Why Alfium? Is it because you found it in Alfred's servers?" Johnny laughs out loud. I sigh.

"At the start yes, but not anymore." I explain the new origin for the name, while he looks at it under different angles, testing it with different materials and electronics and observing it under a microscope.

"Okay, that can work. So you called me because you can't reveal this otherwise you'll be killed and your stuff will be stolen is that it? You need a chaperon, someone to say he's with me don't touch him to the other guys in the prison because you're too small to be taken seriously yet, right?"

"Basically, yes."

"Alright, I can work with that. I want 60%."

"Of the profits?"

"Why would I take that? No, I want 60% of all the cables you'll be producing to go to Stark Industry and to me."

"I believe we'll be discussing that between lawyers, Mr. Stark. For now you should be talking among yourselves about what you can do with this stuff." Jeri intervenes, coming down the elevator. "You do realize that Stark Industry isn't enough to protect that invention. We need Stark, that's for sure, but not just you. We'll be calling a lot of people, Mr. Tin Man."

"It's Iron Man, trademarked and registered. And you're right, Lawyer Woman, we'll talk about that later. What's the biggest thing you tried it on to check the power drop?"

"We lined a prototype that was supposed to draw on 1.3 Gigajoules, and it got it down to 130 Megajoules. So it doesn't seem to be affected by the size of the object or the energy demanded from it." I answer.

"What kind of stuff are you making that would need that much power? Are you guys making a new portal?"

"No, but it's confidential. You might get a sneak peek before the rest of the world, but you won't know what it is until we make sure it's ready." Johnny says with a smirk. "I can give you a hint if you let me test out that sweet armor you got."

"Johnny!" Sue says, trying to prevent that from happening.

"So you can make metal with that machine, and the first one you made is already overpowered. Have you tried making other metal and alloys, yet? What about new metals, things never seen before. What if you separate the copper from the stuff you make the Alfium with?"

"We tried that last thing, and it's just a different kind of quartz, but flimsier, more prone to cracks, and overall much less useful than normal quartz. We haven't tried other alloys, but Alfred is running simulations in the background. Do you have any specifics in mind? It might help to focus on a particular one."

"Well, I think you can try titanium, nickel and maybe even nitinol. Don't limit yourself to alloying one metal, try alloying other alloys."

"We'll do that. Just so you know, I won't be making you any armor. You've got enough as is." Well… I won't make him any, but at some point, I will give him direct access to the machine. Forn now every single one of the machines is linked to Alfred for security and monitoring purposes.

"At least I tried…" he mumbles. "Alright." He looks around the lab. "Have you already-"

"We were in the middle of it."

"Cool. And have you also-"

"Yup, it's almost finished and Alfred is monitoring everything. Once all of the servers' cables are turned to alfium, we'll look at the machine to see what made it act as it did."

"What if you weave the alfium in your suits?"

"Well, we thought about doing that but Alfred said that the only way it could be used is to upgrade the connectivity of the suit, not much else."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to call Pepper and ask her to bring lawyers so they can get started on the legal side of things while we work on that. Do you have a server or two for me to install Jarvis real quick? Two AIs will be better than one. I'll use your gift to upgrade him at my place."

"You shouldn't do that now." I say, thinking about the events of Iron Man 3. Speaking of, I should do something with Maya Hansen, her death is pretty sad considering her work on Extremis… "I think you should put it in a suit or something. Can you imagine the power you could end up saving when blasting your repulsors?"

"I thought you wouldn't make a suit for me?"

"I won't. I gave you a gift, and you do whatever you want with it but my recommendation is putting it in a suit and maybe in your arc reactor. I don't know what you used to make it."

"You don't?"

"I mean I could probably find out if I gave it some thought and get myself my own version in a few weeks, but I don't want to be on your bad side. Speaking of, why didn't you patent it?"

"Stane was pushing for it hard, and I just didn't want arms dealers to get their hands on my tech anymore. And I didn't think anyone would be able to do it, or have the balls to come out into the world with it. If you did, I would have sued you to hell and back, all the while taking you away from your hands using my suit."

"You know, you're not the only person in the world able to do what you do, right? There are smart people everywhere. You may be in the top five, but you're certainly not number 1."

"Is it because you are?"

"No, I'm not sure if I'm more or less smart than you are, but I'm definitely not the smartest person on earth. This position is held by a 10 year old African princess. And no, I'm not joking. She's one of the people I want to work with in our science pals group."

"Why haven't I heard of her if she's so smart? And a princess?"

"Because her country is hidden. I only know of it because of the dream I had. She'll appear in a while. I'll try to get into contact with her before then. Anyway. Do you want me to have a Stark reactor, or make my own, and will you sue me if I do either one?"

"Just… Don't sell it to anyone please. And don't give it to anyone either. In fact, keep it a secret, and that'll make me happy. If you manage to upgrade it, tell me about it, I don't think it's perfect yet."

"I'll make sure to do so. Will you stay for dinner?"

"Nah, once my lawyers and yours are done I'll get back to Malibu, I have a lot of stuff to do. Keepme posted. I'll leave a copy of Jarvis here if you need. I promise he won't spy on you again. I learned my lesson. Circé, was it, she's quite the AI. Good thinking, having her devour antivirals databases for breakfast and viruses for lunch. Did you program an AI to create viruses for her to fight during its infancy?"

"Just like in real life, nothing is more effective against a virus than a vaccine with a small strand of it for good measure."

"Fire is more effective though. Fire burns all viruses. If you think about it, I'm like the perfect vaccine, with me around, no virus will touch you before being burnt." Johnny cuts in, jealous that his hero spends his time talking to me...

"That's true. I wonder if we can make some sort of fire vaccine, for extreme viruses." I say, trying to appease his jealousy while hinting at something for Stark.

"Hey, that reminds me of some girl I met at a conference some time ago, I wonder what she's up to these days." Oh, just helping create the number one terrorist threat in America in a few years... "What am I saying, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, much less someone I met however years ago while drunk… Anyway, nice to see you guys, we'll talk later." he says, before heading to the meeting room where our and his lawyers barricaded themselves for quite a while now.

"You know, you might have something there, with the vaccine idea…" Sue says, interested.

"Oh, yeah, I know. It exists, but it's not stable yet. And used by terrorists. It was created by Dr. Maya Hansen a few years ago, with some help from Tony Stark. As he said, he was drunk so he doesn't remember, but he will in a couple of years. I'll try to recruit her by then, she might make a good addition to our science pals group, and you might have a new friend to talk shop with."

"I'd like that. Wait, terrorists?"

"She's in it for the science. And a tiny bit against her will. For now, let's just meet up with Jeri to see what advantages or disadvantages she managed to get for us…"


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Wakanda Forever!

Chapter 13

After a long talk with Jeri and her team, the major benefit Stark Industry would get is exclusivity and input. While we will be able to have contracts with other companies, the Stark Industry will also have a hand in those. Meaning that for the planned contract with Toyota for example, we won't provide the cable nor the means to produce them, what will happen is that Stark will act as an intermediary between Toyota and Yggdrasill, taking most of our production and disseminating it to the other companies. If we produce 100 units of Alfium, we will give Stark 87 units, of which 45 will stay with Stark enterprise while the 42 left will be passed to other companies. The remaining 13 units that we are left with will be for Yggdrasill's direct use and restricted to use only, meaning no direct sale of any part of those 13 units will be authorized.

As such, Yggdrasill will still have 13% of all the Alfium's production a week to use in our products, now consisting of our suits (not using alfium) and our Radiation Detection Units (using very little Alfium). Down the line the products we'll be making such as the Scan-Eir (Sue's machine, a scanner with the Norse name of the Goddess associated with medicine, planned to be distributed under either Vanaheim or Alfheim) and the Svalinn Generators (Ben and Johnny shield generators, named after a legendary shield protecting from the power of the sun, often associated with the idea of cold so either Jotunnheim of Nidavellir) will be using a bit of Alfium, but for each of them less than one unit will be needed. Recently, the team dove into Norse mythology and finding names for our inventions and products has become a sort of competition.

After that, Jeri went to her office to prepare the next batch of meetings with all the companies she thought would be interested. Jeri and Stark agreed that they won't be announcing anything until all partners were selected, with everyone signing a very stringent NDA at the start of every meeting. As such, she told us to expect to be able to announce it around late March next year. That leaves us with around five months to do what we wanted. Which meant finishing our products to announce them along with the Alfium.

A couple of days after Tony left, Jarvis' remnant informed Alfred that Stark had shared his current Arc reactor design, so I worked on it. Pulling them up, I couldn't help but marvel at the sheer genius of the inventors of the original reactor, Howard Stark and Anton Vanko, two smart minds limited by their time and technology but still able to create such an impressive thing. Tony as well, being able to miniaturize it in a cave and subsequently improve upon the original design again and again before adding a newly created element as its core without failure shows his resourcefulness and intelligence.

Diving into it, I start by analyzing the original design's blueprint, the pictures available of its creation process and of its workings. Creating an image in my mind of all the elements and parts used in its design, a 3D blueprint slowly forms in my head, assembling itself into the finished product, and disassembling itself into its components again and again, with different parts changing or replaced by others. After the main Arc is created, I take the design from my mind and bring it to the real world, using Tony's favorite hologram os. At this point, the reactor is about 6.4 meters wide (or 21 feet), and should produce enough energy to power this building, but the size and materials needed is a concern.

Once the Arc 1 is saved and stored, I check out Tony's versions. Seeing the copper coils serving as electromagnets, I ask Alfred to prioritize simulations of alloys dedicated to replacing it. Alfium could be used, but the field generated would be smaller than actual copper so I need to either use copper or find something else. Directing him around neodymium, his simulations should take less time. I use the same process to create a blueprint in my mind of the two different models Tony sent me, analyzing them under different angles, taking them apart and building them back together in my mind. Comparing the first to the second, and the two small ones to the two bigger ones, the original and my version, I end up with different designs and slowly check each one before ending with an usable one. It's a bit bulkier than Tony's, but it's still around the size of a normal mug, so much better than Arc 1. Naming the file Arc 2, I bring it from my head to the computer, saving it as well.

Now using an advantage over Tony (yes an advantage, no I'm not cheating…), I ask Alfred to replicate the scale model of Stark Expo 1974, before doing like Tony and extrapolating the element left behind by his father. I want to get a head start on upgrading his reactor using the Badassium —sigh— he'll be 'rediscovering' in a few months. I won't share this discovery with him, waiting for Tony to find out by himself before talking to him about it. Since I'm working on it now, I want to make sure all I can do about the reactor is saved before I forget (which I doubt will ever happen). The Badassium now simulated, I re-work tony's latest Arc reactor model to house it, like he will, using every detail I can remember from the movie and my dream. Now that it's ready in my mind, I do what my brain is now used to, which is taking it apart and reconstructing it multiple times till I find an appropriate version.

After a while, Alfred informs me that a new alloy might work as replacement, using neodymium, iron, boron and an alloy of the three as well as a new metallic material based on it. This material takes the best characteristics of the four different things to create a stronger and more powerful electromagnetic core, and an alloy of Alfium and the newly created Vidofnium (from Vidofnir, the rooster symbolizing the victory of light over darkness and vigilance) for the coils makes it, in theory, one of the most powerful electromagnets and as such fusion reactor to exist on earth. Thinking to myself that using other materials to improve upon it would be difficult, I remember the fact that there are in fact materials that could be used, such as Vibranium, and so making contact with Wakanda has now moved into my list of priorities.

After working on all the Arc reactors for what now amounts to a week, I take the first real break in my research to try and get information on Vibranium.

"Alfred, I've decided. It's time we contact Shuri. Hack into Wakanda's system, but just to find a way to leave the game we prepared."

"Does it take priority, Sir?"

"Yes." I decided to do it now before Shuri takes a closer look at Wakanda's cyber defenses. From what I can remember she was always trying new things all the time and inventing stuff using the vibranium at her disposition. She's still pretty young so finding something new to do should stimulate her a bit.

"Very well." After a couple of minutes, Alfred speaks up again. "Sir, the package has been delivered. We'll be informed as soon as— Ah, pardon me, it seems young miss Shuri has already found it, and apparently finished the first le— the first two levels."

"Good, bring up the game interface for me please. I want to see her progress."

"Very well, Sir." The screen showing the game in front of me, I had prepared it a while ago. It's basically a high stake online puzzle game designed to find smart and talented young people. I hadn't planned to release it online just yet, but I sent a copy to Shuri as a first contact. The goal is to beat one level to access a higher and higher difficulty. It has puzzle, racing, action, strategy and simulation elements depending on the level, to challenge different parts of the brain. It's what I'll be using to find young smart minds in the future, to help them and the Baxter foundation grow. For now, though, while it's connected to Alfred servers, only Shuri has access to the game, which means it's easy to track her progress. While I created the game and infrastructure surrounding the code, Alfred has been programming all the different puzzles and levels. When I tried it, it took me around three hours to complete the first ten levels. The game has 50. After three days, I had managed to beat it. I estimated her to take around one or one and a half day to beat it. After all, I wasn't playing non-stop as I suspect she will. After two hours and forty minutes, she manages to pass the tenth level, and as I informed Alfred earlier, the next level is locked with a code to decrypt. Once decrypted, the code will in fact lead her to my email address, to initiate contact. Around five minutes after the code appeared in front of her, I receive an email, containing a couple of malwares, spywares and Trojan horses. Sweeping through them, Alfred informs me that the mail is just a hello, so I respond by saying hello as well. Without all the software she had associated in her mail.

"Who are you, what do you want, what is this game, do you have more, how can I play…" and a whole string of questions asked one after the other arrive in the mailbox.

"My name is Reed Richards, from the Baxter Foundation and the Yggdrasill company. I just want to talk, Princess Shuri of Wakanda. Might I ask an audience with you? As for this game, it's an online competitive game I made with the goal of finding smart and talented individual such as yourself. I'll eventually release it to the world, but for now only you and I have played it. There is a total of 50 levels, and I'll give you access to it in a while. I thank you for your participation and for accepting my request of communication." I try to be a bit formal, knowing that she is an actual princess. A few seconds later, she tries to hack into my systems, but is blocked by Alfred and Circé. I had asked them to prevent her intrusion but forego the usual counterattack, so when her cyberattack fails and nothing happens, she is a bit surprised.

"Who are you?" she asks again after a while.

"As I said, my name is Reed Richards. I'm a scientist working at the Baxter Foundation, and one of the owners of the newly created Yggdrasill company. I recently discovered the unstable molecules and started working on it, notably with the recent type of suit we produce at Yggdrasill. I was hoping to have an audience with you to discuss science and technology."

"I know all that, but how do you know about me, and Wakanda?"

"That is one of the things I would like to address in a private talk with you. Or if you'd like with your family. I am willing to come to Wakanda, or meet you wherever you desire. The reason why I'm so cryptic is that despite being pretty secure, there is no way to make sure our online conversation stays private. Some of the things I would like to talk to you about require extreme confidentiality and as such I would like to avoid any potential leak. I understand that you might need to take some time to think about meeting me. As such, I thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Reed Richards. P.S.: When you'll receive this email, the rest of the game will be unlocked for your use."

After a few minutes without answer, seeing that not even the game was activated, I decided to go and train a bit. Three days later, without any news from the game or Shuri's email address, Alfred informs me that a guest requested a meeting at the front desk. Showing me the video feed, it seems that this guest is Ayo, from the dora Milaje.

"Welcome, Miss…?" I ask her as she comes down the elevator and into my office.

"You are Richard?" she asks with a strong tone.

"I am Reed Richards, yes. You are?" I ask again.

"Come." she says, turning around and going back to the elevator. I sigh, and follow her. After a few minutes of walking, we enter a small building down the lane. "Sit." she orders me, pointing a chair in front of a small desk. As I obey, she goes near the door and stays standing. Five minutes later, T'chaka comes in accompanied by Okoye. As I rise to salute him, Ayo retrieves one of her pearls which grows to the side of a spear and points it at me. This movement took her less than a second.

"Wow, sorry. I just wanted to offer my salutation." I say, as I raise my hands in the air.

"It's alright, Ayo. I'll manage. You must be Mr. Richard. My daughter told me you tried to talk to her." he says in a somber tone.

"Yes, I'm Reed Richards. I'm sorry about the way this could be seen. I know that she's young and it's easy to misinterpret my wanting to talk to a young girl on the internet. As I told her, she's a brilliant mind, and I would like to discuss science with her. It's all I want with your daughter, your highness." I say, first slowly putting my hands down and bowing. I know that the Wakandan salute is different, but doing it might not be the best of ideas right now. "Respectfully, I already have a partner whom I love and satisfies me profusely, and I have no attraction towards young girls. I really am only interested in talking with your daughter about technology and science. I apologize for intruding on your network as I did but it was the fastest way to obtain an audience with you or her." I bow again. He turns to Okoye and nods. She goes outside the room, with Ayo. He turns to me, and sits on the chair opposite.

"Sit." I do as he asks. "Why should I believe anything you just said?" Other than the fact that you're probably monitoring my vitals to see if I'm lying? I ask in my mind.

"Because as you know, I hacked into your systems without being noticed, but leaving enough traces of my passage so that once discovered, you could plug a lot of holes in your defenses. Because once I was in your systems, the only thing I did was leave a game for your daughter. Because I followed your bodyguard to this building without asking any questions, taking any defensive measure or telling anyone about where I was going. I even left all my belongings and electronics at home."

"How have you learned of Wakanda and of my daughter?" Now we're talking.

"Is this room secure?"

"Yes. We have surveillance all around this building. Nothing comes in and out."

"That's not what I'm talking about. If we are to talk about what I know, you should retrieve all recording instrument from this room and the surrounding ones. This is extremely confidential and could be detrimental for the whole world if leaked. I would like to talk about that in my office, which is safe from prying eyes and ears, and secure from external threats." We recently put one of Ben and Johnny's shields in place, using a less powerful copy of an arc reactor to power it, but it's strong enough to block a lot of damage. "I understand if you don't want to go there, but I won't be able to reveal to you a lot of information otherwise." After saying that, I leave him to ponder my words. Scratching his beard for a while, he must be listening to the Dora Milaje on the other side of the door.

"Again, why should I believe that what you have to say would require such precautions?" Getting tired of this little game, I decide to give him enough to move him.

"Oakland, April 24th, 1992." This is the day he killed his brother N'Jobu. I doubt he'll refuse to hear me out after that. He may try to kill me though, so let's see how it turns out.

[{AN: The day and month are random, since the movie never really said a specific date}]

He jumps off his chair and the Dora Milaje enter the room with a bang, putting themselves between their king and me, their spears at the ready. I don't move a muscle, looking into T'Chaka's eyes. What will you do, your highness? After a couple of seconds, he tells something to the two. They leave the room, although reluctantly, sending me death glares. T'Chaka stays standing, looking at me.

"How much do you know?" he says, his voice almost as loud as a whisper.

"A lot." I answer. "When I said it could affect the whole world, your country was included, your highness. Do you need more? Do you want more reasons to 'believe me' as you asked? Or shall we move on and start anew? The day is getting old, and I'd like to return to my office before my family starts looking for me. Shall we?" I ask, not moving a muscle. I have no doubt that if I move before he does, the guards will enter the room again, probably breaking the door for good and try to skewer me. After a few moments of hesitation, he talks to his guards, turns to me and nods.

"Let's go. If what you say does not satisfy me, I will kill you." he threatens, but points to the door with an open hand.

"I have no doubt that you will try, king." I say, slowly rising from my chair and following after him. Once I pass through the door, Ayo tells me to lead the way and the two Dora Milaje stay between T'Chaka and myself for the short trip. Finally stepping down the elevator, I welcome them to my office. King T'Chaka doesn't move yet, letting his guards inspect the room they are certain it is safe, the king comes in. I offer him a seat on one of the couches, instead of going to my desk. "Alfred, are we monitored?" I ask. Ayo and Okoye look around the room to see who might I be talking.

"Sir, it would seem the beads on the wrist of your guest are used for communication, and are presently recording this conversation, yes. Otherwise, the room is clear." The guards look around more frantically this time, not used to the presence of a disembodied voice responding to me, and pointing out what should be a secret to the world.

"This is Alfred, an Artificial Intelligence responsible for the safety of this building. I would like to ask you to turn off your recording apparatus, please." I ask, looking only at T'Chaka.

"Leave the room." He says, touching his bracelet. The guards interject in Wakandan. "This is an order." he responds, leaving no room for discussion. Once more, they reluctantly leave the room.

"Alfred, if you could guide them to the lounge for the time. And activate the white room protocol please."

"As you wish, Sir." The elevator door open, welcoming the two guards, while the wide bay window turns white, masking us to the outside world. Alfred also shuts down all electronics in the room besides T'Chaka's pearls.

"All electronics in this room has been deactivated besides your pearls. Alfred as well, is shut down for our conversation. If you could please do the same." I ask, and he nods, touching his pearls for a few seconds before putting them down on the table. "Very well. Let's start from the beginning." I say, before explaining everything about our trip to another dimension, our powers, and my dream. Talking about his brother's death, telling him as much detail as I can remember to make sure he believes me, without saying anything about the future. I have told enough people as it is about it, and I have no reason to do so with him. If anything, while that might look heartless, I'd rather wait until his son T'Challa becomes king, as while he was a good king for the most part, he made some terrible decisions during his reign. "King T'Chaka, it may be presumptuous of me, but I'd really like to talk to your daughter about technology and science, as well as obtaining just a sample of Vibranium to help my research. What I aim to do ultimately is protect this world against external threats. I believe your daughter might be able to help me in that regard." I present him a couple of plans I have with Tony and the team, including the science hub we talked about at length. "I know that your country will also benefit from such an alliance." I say, as a closing statement, leaving him to ponder my words for a while.

* * *

-Author Note-

_Hello!_

_I Understand that a lot of you don't particularly like Shuri, and I know that she's not the smartest in the comics. However, I aim to 'copy' the MCU, as in Cinematic, for most of the things I do, and in the MCU she was considered smarter than Stark. _

_While he "invented" time travel, he did so using a theoretical base he already had, and nowhere was it said that it was done in just an evening. She doesn't have a lot of 'achievements' under her belt, but know that in my FF, she helped invent 60-70% of all the high-tech things they use in Wakanda (maglev train, new suits...)._

_I don't intend to have Shuri become a main character, but she'll sometime be in the background, helping the 'science bros'. _

_To a lot of people asking me if Reed will become smarter, no. I'm already having trouble sometime making it realistic, so having him augment his brain capacity is out of mine... To the reader explaining me about his neuroplasticity, thank you for all the information, I'll use a toned down version of it for the same reason as just above. _

_Thanks for reading, and enjoy!_

ps: small update, people noted that I used 'my king' instead of 'your higness', it's completely my fault I forgot the correct saying. I changed it. Sorry for the inconvenience.


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Family Day

"If I let an outsider have a sample of vibranium, I'll be no less than a thief myself. If I let my daughter speak to someone who baited her through the internet, I'll be no less than a fool. If I let a white colonizer into my country, I'll become a traitor to my own kingdom. You do realize what you ask of me, don't you young man. You ask me to become a thief, a fool and a traitor to my own crown. You speak of protecting the world, spinning tales of foreseeing the future, the past, and the present as movies. You dare to ask of me to speak to my daughter, a girl less than ten years old whom you lured with your games. Why should I believe anything you say and not kill you on the spot? Approach my daughter again, and I will destroy you. Speak of what you told me here today and I'll have your head personally, cosmic powers or not."

"So I take it you don't agree?" I ask, as T'Chaka leaves the room. "Alright then. Your son might be more receptive in a few years. I can wait. Alfred, new task please, find Ulysses Klaue and set up a meeting if you can, I'd like to acquire a couple of bottles of his 1992 best, please."

"Yes, Sir. What about the game? Shall we still send a copy to the young Shuri?"

"Yeah, but avoid contact for now. I don't want a war yet."

"Of course, that would be bad planning if you did, Sir."

"Oh cut the sarcasm. I get it, I was too forward and I know it. Won't happen again. By the way, see to it if you can find a Benin artifact from the 7th century, Fula tribe, please." Well haste was not the best of plans, and I f*cked up big time. If I can't get my hand on vibranium the legit way, I'll have to get it the lawless one. Contacting Klaue is the first plan, and this is the second. The artifact that will find itself in a museum only to be stolen by Klaue and Killmonger in the future is the second plan. Waiting for T'Challa to be on the throne is the third one. It's a long one but I don't really have much else choice. "Check the whole game and publish it when I'm done testing it as well, the sooner we start it, the faster we'll find people."

"You still haven't given it a name, Sir."

"The Prodigies. And make the game company the Killian-Farrar Foundation. I don't want the players to be scared of the Baxter name and think the game will blow up in their faces. How long till the Flavium press conference?"

"The last deal has been signed by Mrs. Hogarth two days ago, and the conference has been called by Stark Industries in eight days. You received the invitation this morning while you were meeting King T'Chaka outside the building."

"Alright, then. I'll try on Prodigies for a while, keep me posted please."

"As always, Sir." With that I went to test out the game again.

The first time I tried it, it had taken 3 hours to finish the first 10 levels out of 50. A good thing about it is that should you decide to take it from the start after completing a number of tests, you can. As I launched the game back from zero, I felt something different from the last time. As this time I was prepared to complete it in one go, my perception— no. My brain physically seemed to adapt itself for puzzles and the categories of games I was playing. My synapses seemed to evolved based on the need, creating, separating or deleting synapses while I played. After three hours, I was done with the first 17 levels. Three hours later, I finished the 30th level. In total, it took me 10 and a half hours to complete the game instead of the 18 to 24 hours I had first estimated.

During that time, I didn't feel the need to train and when Sue tested my radiation, it seemed to have stayed at normal levels which means that using my powers to affect my brain has the same effect as two days' worth of training. Although, now I'm famished and tired at the same time. Stretching my brain for so long in one sitting is definitely not something I'll be able to do daily. Getting my brain 'back into its shape' was a harrowing experience to say the least as well.

After a good meal and a long night of rest I decided to check on the simulations of alloys we could make with the unstable molecules machines. We've received a lot of mail from scientists wanting to test their theories about unstable molecules, and while we mostly restricted the use to advanced universities and research centers— with all the 'prints' having to be approved beforehand by Alfred and me in some cases— some machines were 'technically' available for public use.

The latest bunch of mails concerning this included a notice by Dr. Cho from Seoul, working on living tissues and biomaterials and asking if there was a way to print skin using unstable molecules and if the skin printed had any peculiarities. I decided to approve of the test, provided I could have access to the lab results as early as she did. I also asked her to contact Sue for a partnership when the two of them would have some time for it. Knowing she helped design the cradle that allowed printing artificial skin on the flesh of people, having the two scientists working on something together might bring something nice.

Steadily we were all coming up a lot of inventions that could help both us and the world at large. From the latest notes that I received, the Tesla company was putting the final finishing touches on their industrial complex, and soon will be able to manufacture the Saltation. They also included the new process to improve the car's power output, input and overall efficiency. The estimated increase in range for the car is about 110%, which means that from the original 550, the range would now be around 1155 km on the ground. The RDDevice was on sale and most government had already passed a bunch of orders. A number of fashion companies had started making their markets on the app coming with the suits. Another dozen or so had their own designs getting printed and the app was also compatible with those, but having a G*cci dress as a standard and being able to put some of their other designs in was a very lucrative opportunity for them. While it's not announced yet we're already receiving money from the sale of Alfium, and that's just the first alloy we came up with. The Baxter Foundation, or at least their sales partner Yggdrasill was finally bankable.

The training was getting more and more specific, and while Steve could give us the basis, he started advising us to look for teachers in specific martial arts instead of a jack of all trades like him. Although he was accomplished in the ones he taught us, we were soon coming to the point where his knowledge in the martial arts won't be enough. He could still kick our a*ses when we didn't use our powers and he restricted himself, but even when we used our powers he would still manage to come out on top in half of our battles. We managed a couple of upsets, though. We were getting used to fight in a group now. The suits were a very welcome addition to our style though.

There were six days left till the Stark conference. After resting and working for a while, I asked Sue on a date, a walk in Central Park. I was figuring that we were getting too cooped up in the building. Ben and Johnny occasionally went out by themselves, but we didn't. We had a few movie nights and slept in the same bed, but we needed some time as a couple and I thought that since there wasn't anything of extreme importance at the moment, why not spend some time outside. She agreed and off we went.

Walking the streets, we noticed how more than a quarter of the people were wearing our suit with Yggdrasil designs. I didn't pay enough attention to the app to know for sure how many creator designs there was, and how many people here were using them, but I'm sure it could potentially be more than half the people we saw. It brought a bigger smile on our faces as we walked hand in hand in the park. We sat on a bench for a while, to appreciate nature and talk about nothing.

"Hey, you're the young inventor dude who made a flying car and transforming clothes!" a young voice shouted.

"Dear, don't shout and leave them alone. They're on a date."

"What's a date?" the young boy asked himself.

"Don't worry, miss. It's fine. Hi there, cutie, I'm Sue. What's your name?"

"I'm Peter! I'm an inventor too! Are you an inventor? I know he's one because he invented stuff. He was on TV. I'm an inventor because I invented things too, but I can't build them. One day I will build them, it's just that I can't right now. Why didn't you answer me? You're not an inventor?" he said, rapid-firing his questions. "Yes I am, I'm an inventor. I'm working on a machine that can tell you if you're sick. That's cool, right, Peter?" Sue answered. "What are you working on?"

"It's confidentiale."

"Confidential, Peter." The lady corrected him.

"No, confidentiale, it's Spanish for confidential. Anyway. It's a secret."

"Hey, Peter, do you like video games?"

"Yeah! I love them! But I can't play long because it's not good for your eyes and they're expensive." he says, pointing to his glasses and wallet alternatively.

"Well, If your mom agrees, I'll send you a good one, with puzzles and stuff for free. It's not supposed to come out before a couple of days, but you'll get an early copy that's made only for inventors like us." I say, looking at his guardian, and seeing her nod.

"She's not my mom, silly! That's my aunt! My mom left a while ago but she'll come back soon." His aunt nudges him on the shoulder. "Oh, yeah. Thanks for the game, and sorry to have bothered you. It was nice meeting you, but we have to go now. Is that it?" He whispers his aunt.

"Very good," she whispers back. "Thank you both for your time and sorry for the inconvenience. Say goodbye, dear." She says, leaving me a post-it with his mail address.

"Goodbye, dear!" he says, before running off. She sighs and runs after him. As we look at the two, Sue turns to me.

"This was nice. He seems like a smart boy."

"That's why I decided to send him a copy of the game early, I wanted to make sure he'll get to try the game. There's no certainty, but at least there's a good chance he does. He reminded me of someone from my visions, but he's a bit young."

"Reed, we're not that much older than him. At worst we're twice his age. You're the one who always says that age doesn't matter when you're smart. Anyway, I'm glad we went out. It was relaxing. Thank you for that. I hope we'll do this more often." She says, kissing me on the cheek.

As we get back to the building, she says she wants to see her father. Since we got back, we sent him to a safe place where enemies shouldn't get to. We often talk by mail and phone, but it's not the same. She calls Johnny so that they can get some family time. Ben's father is in prison for recidivism of grand theft auto, his mother died when he was younger. I never really fit in with my family, and it got worse when they tried to get some money from me when they saw me on TV. When they came for me, I declared there and then that my family was the Baxter foundation and that I'd never get back to a house where I was bullied and put aside because of my brain. Franklin was the only real family member all of us in the Baxter building had left. Ben decided to talk to his father, so he left as well. Since Steve only came by two to three times a week, he wasn't here, and NAtasha had a mission for the last couple of days.

I was now alone in the building with Alfred and a copy of Jarvis. I decided to take some time to visit a few orphanages in and around New York, to see what they needed. A couple of them refused money donations, instead asking if possible to give some things to help the children directly such as warm clothes, blankets, medicine etc. I made a list of it all, to get everything delivered later in the day. During one of my visit, at Saint Agnes orphanage, I met with a man my age, blind, who was playing with the kids. Talking with Sister Margaret Grace, I learned that he was called Matt and was studying law, but still spent most of his afternoon with the children at the orphanage he grew up in. I smiled at that, and left the orphanage after writing what they needed.

Back at the office, I tasked Alfred with buying and sending all that was requested by each of the orphanages. I sent blankets to all the orphanages, even those that didn't ask for it. We were in November and the nights were getting cold so it was the least I could do. I also sent a few computers with the game installed on it to those who didn't have any, while I sent copies of the game to others.

"Sir, if I may?" Asked Jarvis.

"Go ahead."

"Why orphanages? Was it to share your game to children more susceptible to work with you?"

"What? No, the game was an afterthought. It's just that today made e think about family a lot, and I wanted to help those who didn't have any. If I can help those in need, why shouldn't I? Why did Stark build and sent an extremely efficient and filtrating water pump in those poor countries with difficult access to water when he was young? Why did he set the firemen up with a ball every year getting hundred of thousands in donations? Because he helps those in need. He may be known as a merchant of death by some, but the money from the sale of weapons is then spent in research on how to help others. He is one example that I thought would hit home with you. Now, why do you think I helped those orphanages, Jarvis?"

"It would seem that you helped because you could, Sir. I'm sorry I misconstrued your intentions."

"It's okay, it happens. Anyway, the team should be coming back soon. I'm going to work for a while, tell me if anything happens Alfred."

"As always, Sir. If I may, there is something I think should have your attention."  
"What is it?" I ask.

"While looking through the Baxter Foundation's deleted files, I discovered that an entire branch project was stored in 7 containers just before the people responsible for this project died in the incident that brought Mr. Van Doom from Dimension Zero. The containers listed in that file were reported stolen near an island in the Atlantic just a couple of days ago, from a cargo ship that was transporting them to Europe as per the now supposedly dead scientists' orders."

"Are you saying they faked their deaths to keep their project secret? What were they working on?"

"The files I recovered were mentioning humanoids, Sir. The specifics were deleted more thoroughly." I sigh.

"Call the team, and send word to Fury. Prepare the Fantasti-car, we'll be going on a small trip. Send all the files you have on the scientists, the project, and the cargo ship route please. We need to make sure that this small pocket doesn't become something more..."

"So, what's gotten into you? Some of us were busy, you know?" Johnny asks, in the lounge.

"Well, we need to check something out. I'm sorry I disturbed your day. It appears that the phrase 'we create our own demons' might be too true. Alfred has informed me that the four scientists who died when Viktor came back might have in fact faked their deaths to keep working on their own stuff."

"Were they working on something dangerous?"

"I don't know yet. It might be or it might not, we're going to make sure." Sue takes me by the arm and asks me a question quietly.

"Why don't you know? Was it not in your visions?"

"No, nothing about the Baxter foundation or us in general was in them. I'm clueless as well." I answer, shrugging.

"Shouldn't we let Fury and SHIELD take care of it?" Sue asks out loud. "We're scientists, they're spies, that's more their domain isn't it?"

"It is, but it's our responsibility to stay on top of things like these. Plus, we need some action, or the training we've been doing so far won't serve us much."

"Well now you're talking as if you know that there will be fighting involved. I'm in!" Johnny exclaims.

"He needs to be put in check or he'll burn of excitement, I'm coming as well." Ben follows.

"Fine, whatever. Don't let me tell you I told you so later on then. Alfred, show us everything." Sue asks.

* * *

Sorry for the lack of chapters, I was both sick and in the last stretch of class for this semester, so I had a bunch of exams and papers to write. I won't publish much during holidays, but next year I'll try to make up for it. I'll be writing my thesis, but I'll write this to distract myself from work a bit.

Anyway, have a good day, and great holidays.

P.S. someone told me that some words didn't really 'translate' well from my language (French, btw). If you find some, don't hesitate to tell me, I'm also writing as a way to improve.

Thanks for reading!


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Road Trip

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[January 25th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City. Five days after the disappearance of 5 young scientists.]

"We can't wait much longer, the machines have detected another energy surge on the other side. Is everything ready?"

"They are almost ready, but if you want the cops to ask why a 50 year old looks like a 20 year old, we're going to have to wait. Yours is the last one and it should be finished in the afternoon. Jerome is helping me with that since all of his stuff is done. Carlo is getting the data and shipping orders prepped. We're just waiting for it to come to age and you'll be able to kill the four of us. Are you sure you don't want Tilda to come with us? It will be lonely up there."

"She's a crazy b*tch. I should have let her see Jerome's cousin, she definitely needs a therapist."

"And the easiest way you found to break up was to fake your death. Are you sure you don't need to see Barton either? I've got to say, the dude is good. Now I'm not always focused on improving my own image as I was before our sessions."

"That's because you're working on creating a perfect body to inhabit. The shrink didn't help you with this you just shifted your perfectionism and narcissism from yourself to the future you that you have in mind. Now just go do your job and keep me posted. We can't f*ck this up."

"Yes, sir! Of course, sir! With pleasure, sir! Dude we're partners in this, you're not my boss, this is why we're out of here, no one above us to tell us what to do."

"Fine, I'm sorry. Please allow me to let you return to your job so that Our plan comes to fruition, partner."

"Sure, I'll leave you be. See, it wasn't that hard. I don't understand how you're the oldest one in our group but also the most impatient. Doesn't wisdom come with age?"

"The wisdom in me is telling me to kick your arse, are you sure you want me to listen to it?"

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{Camera footage, Baxter Foundation archives}

[January 25th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City. Five days after the disappearance of 5 young scientists.]

"Sir! The generators are overloading! The portal is about to come online again!" a scientist barges in Franklin Storm's office while he was in a meeting with a board member.

"How?! It was supposed to be shut down!" Franklin exclaims, looking at his computer to see what was happening.

"There appears to be energy surges from the other side of the machine! It's affecting our instruments!" the scientist answers.

"Clear the floor! Ring the alarm and start evacuating everyone!" the board member orders, leaving the office and heading to the control room.

"No! The energy is coming from the other side, what if it's them?! What if they are trying to come back to us?!" Franklin exclaims, pointing to his computer.

"Franklin, they're dead! It's been days, you need to wake up! If we don't evacuate, more people are going to die! You, there! Why isn't the alarm ringing?" The board member asked the scientist that accompanied them out.

"The portal seem to be attracting electricity, the whole building is cut down and even the emergency power is going into the generators, sir! If we wait any longer it can blow up the who-" A large pulse cut out the lights for a couple of seconds, interrupting the scientist in his speech.

{-}

"What was that?!" Franklin asked, hurrying to the control room as well.

"An electromagnetic pulse! An EMP! The four people over there tried to power the generators down using it, but it didn't work! It's going to blow any minute now!" The scientist pointed to four people lying on the floor in white blouses near the generators.

"Franklin, we need to leave now. Tell everyone to evacuate! Have someone run upstairs to tell everyone to leave the building! Franklin, what are you doing?!" The board member shouted to Franklin, who was opening the door and heading to generators.

"They're down! Those people tried to help, so I'm going to see if they're hurt! Go without me, I'll be right behind you!" Franklin said, before running to see if the scientists were okay...

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[June 22th, 2010. Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"You know, it's still creepy to see them like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you think is going on inside their heads?"

"The orders they received."

"I know that, but. Don't you think there is something more?"

"Jerome and Wladyslav made sure there wasn't. They're just husks, with the only goal in mind being obeying orders."

"Yeah, but they look so much like normal humans, you know. I mean, beside being extremely beautiful and hazy-eyed."

"That's because Wladyslav is obsessed with physical appearance and Jerome made sure they were just mindless and soulless clones. If you want to f*ck them go ahead, but don't get too attached. They're just experiments until He's ready."

"I know, I know. Anyway, what are you working on today?"

"A molecular knife. To cut your tongue to the subatomic level if you keep bothering me like this. Why did I agree to live with three busybodies like you disrupting my work every two minutes?"

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[October 28th, 2010. Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"What happened?!"

"Well, basically, it looked like He has awakened before we were ready."

"How did that happen? I thought He was supposed to wake after we got Him under control?"

"Yes, that was the plan, but somehow, He woke up before the process started."

"Well, at least we can see what He looks like and try to talk to Him now."

"Not exactly, He went and turned Himself into a blinding light. All the clones we sent to try and approach Him went blind after a couple of seconds with him. No one can come close. The process can't be completed until we know what He looks like, but now that's compromised."

"What about cameras? Infrared? Night-vision?"

"We tried all that, He fried all the lenses…"

"What is it? I know you have something in mind."

"Well, I heard there was a talented sculptor who despite being blind, could sculpt anything she could touch."

"So?"

"She's on a trip to Bermuda right now… The teleporter is in range…"

"Yes, but it's not completed yet. Do you really want to risk the integrity of the whole project? It worked for the containers because there wasn't any useful living thing in them. We haven't tested it for human teleportation yet."

"Maris, we don't have much choice. The longer He stays without the process completed, the more chances He has of becoming sentient. We'll lose months of work if He does, more if He realizes what He's capable of..."

*Sigh* "Alright, go find her, I'm going to make sure the teleporter doesn't blow up in our faces or just gives us a puddle of goo."

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[October 28th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City.]

"Maris Morlak, nuclear physicist, 50. Jerome Hamilton, medical biologist, 38. Carlo Zota, electronics technician, 25, and Wladyslav Shinski, geneticist, 38. They were declared dead when the generators near the dimensional pods exploded and brought Victor Von Doom back. Coincidentally, all of the projects they were working on before their death were set to be moved to another location in South America the day before the explosion, and more recently a few containers that was transporting the rest of their projects were reported missing during transportation. The bodies were identified through DNA and corresponded to the scientists. It is my current theory that the bodies were just clones, and never really 'alive'. The field of study of both Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Shinski adheres to this theory, as well as the fact that during the event, the cameras were cut for a brief moment just before the explosion, while no one was present in the room beside the four scientists. The report said that the EMP cut all the cameras, but those in the generator room were shut down a few seconds before said EMP was activated. The device was also made by Dr. Morlak and Dr. Zota. All these facts point to the scientists faking their deaths with premeditation, using the explosion as a cover for their escape. The reason is undetermined for now."

"Thank you, Alfred. As you can see on the map, it appears that these four scientists are not really dead and instead working on their own little projects on an island somewhere in the Atlantic, around 500 km northeast of the Bahamas, in the Bermuda Triangle."

"The Bermuda Triangle, really? Are you sure the ship hasn't just sank to the bottom of the ocean like all the other weird stuff going on in there?" Johnny asked.

"Well, apparently the ship made it to its destination, it's just that 7 containers disappeared from the ship 'in an instant' while passing through the triangle."

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the authorities in Bermuda have just posted an alert, three people disappeared from an art exhibition in Somerset. Reports speak of a blue sphere appearing while the artist was presenting her artwork outside the building. It apparently swallowed the three people who were standing in it before closing on itself. A short range teleportation device was mentioned in the rejected projects of Dr. Morlak, with this sort of effect depicted in his report. It would also explain the disappearance of the containers."

"I'm still banking on aliens," sulked Johnny.

"Who are the missing people?"

"Reported missing are the art director of Somerset Village, a sculptor and a model." Alfred answered, showing known pictures of the three missing people.

"What are you guys waiting for? People are missing we need to save them!" suddenly exclaims Johnny, pumped up by the pictures of the model shown by Alfred.

"Alright. Alfred, how short-range was the teleportation device supposed to work? Try and triangulate the island using that and the two known events. Check the scientists' acquaintances for people working on archeology or cartography, to see if any of them mention this island. Johnny, you can boot up the car but wait for us, please. Ben, Sue, get ready as well. I'm going to take a few things in my lab and I'll be right with you. Guys, this is our first real mission as the Fantastic Four, let's save some people!"

"HELL YEAH!" shouted Johnny, running to the Fantasti-Car.

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"What happened?" A feminine voice sounded out.

"Hi, don't worry, you're safe now. Are you experiencing anything unusual? Do you feel something missing or misplaced in your bodies?" Answered a calm voice.

"What?"

"My machine works. If it didn't they would have turned to goo, not have missing organs Jerome." Said an older male voice.

"Yes, but it was supposed to take one person, not three, so excuse me for checking," answered Jerome.

"What's happening? Who are you guys? Where are we?" Said Millie, who held my hand from the side.

"I'm sorry, miss, you are?" Jerome asked.

"I'm Millie, Millie Collins. Who are you? What did you do to us?" She asked, scared from the situation.

"I'm Jerome, this is Maris. We used what is called a teleportation device to take you from Somerset to here, the Beehive."

"What? What the hell are you saying? Why did you abduct us?! Is it money?" Shouted Jonathan, who apparently came with us from the exhibition.

"You are?"

"You don't know?" Asked Jonathan, sounding a bit upset or hurt at the prospect of the people not knowing hwo he was.

"No, you weren't our target, so we don't know who you are. Or care, actually. 43, 44, take Millie and the gentleman here to the cells and lock them up. Now, if you would follow them without too much fuss, it will avoid a lot of complications." Jerome asked someone who was in the room. They took my friends away and forced me to sit down.

"What is going on?" I asked, lost.

"Ah, sorry Miss Masters. This must be confusing for you. Let me explain-"

"Jerome, you're wasting time." Maris interrupts the other. "Alice, I'm going to give you a choice. You do what we tell you and you don't get hurt, or you don't listen and we kill you. It's that easy. I'm going to ask you to sculpt for us, It's all we want you to do." Maris says, taking her hand and pulling her towards a desk. "Here," he takes her hand to a pile of clay. "Is all you need. Your model is right here. You!, come here and sit down. Don't move till I said so." Someone shifted in the room, sitting next to me and not moving. "That's your model. You sculpt him. If you do a good job we've got one more sculpture for you to do before you can go home. Now get to work." He says, before leaving the room.

"You've got to be gentler, old man." Jerome says, before turning to me. "But he's right, Alice. All we want you to do is sculpt for us. We don't want to hurt you. Once you're done you can go home."

"What about Millie and Jonathan?" I ask, not hearing my friends anymore.

"Was that his name?" He asks himself in a low voice. "Don't worry, they're just in a cell. When you're done with your work, we'll let them go as well."

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[ - . Fantasti-Car. ? . Bermuda Triangle.]

"How long do we have to wait? We've been hovering here for hours!" Johnny says.

"Alfred is looking for the island, it might take a while." Sue answers, but looks at me for confirmation. I shrug my shoulders, since I don't know more than that.

"I have the location, I had to ask Miss Romanov to break in to the house of an acquaintance of Dr. Zota specializing in archeology. That person didn't keep their work on computers so I couldn't access their files by myself. I sent the location to the car, ETA one hour.

"Finally!"

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"It's remarkable. The likeness is uncanny. Despite your material being just clay, you managed to have an impressive degree of similarity between your model and your work!" Jerome exclaims, congratulating me for the sculpture I made of the beautiful man that was sitting next to me.

"Can I go home now?" I ask, a bit scared from the situation.

"I'm sorry but as we said, we have one more job for you. You see, we have 'a friend' who has a problem with Their body. He doesn't remember what He looks like, and we can't show Him because He emits too much light. If we present Him with a mirror, it would just blind Him. Cameras don't work either. Since you don't need your eyes, you can show him what he looks like without any problem using your sculpture. Once you've done that, it's all good." Jerome says, before introducing another person. "This is Carlo, he has something for you."

"I'm going to put a small device in your ear, to guide you and talk to Him." Carlo says, putting a small object in my hand for me to feel, before taking it back and putting it in my ear. "He's a bit disoriented and doesn't remember anything, so we might need you to calm Him down before getting to work, alright?" asks Carlo, after checking out the device worked. "And, done. Can you hear me?" I hear echoing from in front of me as well as in my right ear.

"Yes." I say.

"Good. Now, all you need is on this cart, you can take that to Him." He takes me to a rolling cart with the supplies I used on the clay, before bringing me to the arm of someone else. "22 here will guide you to 'our friend's' room. If you need help, just talk, we're listening." He says, before the other person guides me out of the room.

*BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ* an alarm rings, startling me.

"What's that?" I ask the person accompanying me, trying to get him or her to talk.

"You don't worry about that, it's just a false alarm." Carlo says in my earphone., with my guide still silent.

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"We have company, a small UFO is heading our way and will be here in less than ten minutes." Carlo turns to the three other scientists with him in the control room.

"What is it exactly?"

"Unidentified. It's in the name. We don't know yet. Could be nothing, could be someone checking our island." Carlo answers.

"In any case, let's make sure the defenses are armed and ready. If they get too close we shoot on sight. We don't need distractions right now. We'll see what we want later" says Maris, before turning his attention back to the dot moving on one of the screens, showing the location of Alice in relation to Him.

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[ - . Fantasti-Car. A few minutes away from the Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"It would appear you have been detected despite the invisibility cloaking. The island has started preparing defensive measures and turning their weapons in your direction. You should be in range in about five minutes." Alfred speaks out.

"So much for stealth…" murmurs Ben, slowly transitioning to the Thing. "Can you het a reading on the number of people on that island?"

"The thermal imagery shows approximately 79 people, plus an anomaly." Reed says, looking at his computer. "The anomaly is unreadable, there's like a field surrounding it that masks its presence. The only way I noticed it was the fact that it was too powerful and sucking out the energy around it. And much of the people here show the exact same body temperature., to the tenth of degree."

"They've been busy! At least 72 clones in a few months, it makes sense they wanted to keep it secret, no one would have agreed on on letting them use human cloning." Sue says, looking at the readings. "What do we do to them? We can't really arrest people since we're not police, and I don't know if they are technically people in the eyes of the law either…"

"Cloning is still illegal anyway. We'll try to rehabilitate everyone of them. We're approaching so stay sharp."

"Sir, their weapon started firing, but it doesn't look lethal. It appears they are shooting to stun, not to kill." Alfred says.

"Great, our first super-villains and they're nice. I wanted a real fight, man!"

"First off, they are not super-villains, second, they are still shooting at an unidentified aircraft on sight without any prior notice. I'm not sure this doesn't count as a fight." Ben says, trying to rationalize Johnny.

"Anyway, it's the first real world application of your shield guys, so stay sharp."

"Impact in 3. 2. 1. Contact. Shield integrity hasn't been compromised. Twenty more salves incoming."

"It's still holding strong. Your Arc reactor prototype has lost about three, two percent of it's total charge?" Sue asks me.

"2.4%, and dropping at each shot by another 0.26%. These blasts are powerful enough to power down any normal aircraft. If used on people, it would stun them for a day at the minimum."

"Thank you Alfred. Well, we're coming into view so let's get ready. Johnny? No! Wait!" I say, seeing Johnny getting out of the car and starting to fly.

"I'm getting bored! I'll shut them down by hand! Wow!" he shouts, narrowly avoiding a blast. "Okay, that's IT! FLAME ON!" He shouts, fully powering on, launching fireballs to meet the electric blasts. "Take that!" an electric blast disperses under the fireball, only for two more to follow after the first.

"Johnny, do you hear me? Since you're already outside, at least try to be useful. You can attack the cannons instead of the blasts. The shield will hold up till we land."

"Watch your six, you've got incoming!" Shouts Ben.

"Got it! Thanks Ben!" He plunges from the air, dodging left and right and flies to the island faster than the car, to try and bring the canons down. "And BOOM!" He comes close to one and creates a wave of flames from his hands, melting the mechanical arm from under the canon, disconnecting the power source at the same time. "One down, how many to go? Yikes! That was too close for comfort." He says, a blast missing him by an inch. "Can I have some backup?"

"We're coming down, Alfred is scanning the structure and he'll tell you how many canons are left in a second. You've got two cannons on the wall to your right for now."

"I see them!"

"Sue, For now will you be able to put up a shield when we get out of the car or should Ben tank for us?"

"I think I'll manage, thank you very much."

"Alright. Landing in twenty seconds."

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"You know, I don't think they are a lot of tourists that can light on fire and fly like this guy. And that have a customized flying car with such a powerful shield." Carlo pointed out.

"No you're definitely right, there aren't. I think I saw them before, though." Wladyslav followed, furrowing his brows.

"Right! The brats from the Baxter foundation! The four who went missing with the dimensional pods!" Carlo remembered from the event that happened while they were still working there.

"You don't look that much older. And don't you mean five?"

"I don't know I only see four of them. At least I think that's them, look at that Thing! Is that a rock monster?" exclaimed Carlo, pointing at The Thing.

"Just keep them busy. Send a few clones to restrain them. In the meantime where is Alicia?" Maris asked.

"She's almost there." Jerome answered, before turning on his communicator and speaking directly to her. "That's it. It's two doors on your left and then you'll be on your own. You're doing great."

"Alright, 20 to 34, take the high ground and taze all of them. Restrain them as much as possible. 35 to 49, take the guns and guard the entrance. Wait for our order before you shoot." Wladyslav ordered by pressing a button near the microphone.

"Are you sure that's enough? The rock guy doesn't seem to be affected much by the tazers." pondered Carlo, the youngest of the four.

"If he's the only one left standing, I think that will be good enough. We're just trying to stall them anyway." the middle-aged geneticist concluded, a smirk on his lips which soon spread to the other three.

* * *

_AN:_

_Hi, sorry it's been so long... _

_This time it's a different kind of chapter, I tried to convey the story from both perspectives, as well as using a few 'flashbacks' from the guys on the island. Does this work or should I try something else? It's the first time I try something like that so I would understand if you have misgivings about it. I won't do that everytime anyway... Finally, have a great year everyone! _

_Thanks for reading._


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Enclave

_AN: Hi guys, sorry, I tried doing telepathy, so when HIM is speaking in Alicia's mind, what he's saying is between thoes asterisks, like so:_

*hello*

_and she's answering in her mind, so it's a different kind:_

« Like that »

_Hope this clears it up, won't be used often anyway. If you have a better idea don't hesitate, I'm very open to suggestions._

_Thanks for reading, enjoy!_

* * *

"Where do I go from here?" I asked when my guide stopped walking.

"Right, it's just in front of you. You just have to open the door, and bring the cart with you. The clone can't help you any closer or he'll go blind." Jerome says in my ear.

"Clone? What?"

"Just do it Alice. We don't have all day." The oldest voice answers, prompting me to enter.

"Alright." I say, knocking on the door. "I'm coming in." I listen for a bit but I receive no response. I open the door, fumble to find the cart and pulls it towards me. Coming into the room in reverse to pull the cart more easily, I feel a warmth in my back the more I come in the room. Something lightly tickles my ears, and I hear-no, I feel some wind. But instead of feeling it on my skin, it seems to flow in my mind. I stop the cart when I bump against a table. I move my hands around, trying to feel my way around the room. A hand helps me find a seat. I assume it's the friend they told me about.

*Not really a friend, Mrs. Matters.* I hear. Before I have time to ask what they mean, they talk again. *And no, I'm not truly speaking. I don't want them to hear me yet. I'm speaking directly to your mind, as well as hearing your thoughts. Sorry about the intrusion.*

"What?"

"What is it? You found Him?" Jerome asks, seemingly unaware of what their frien- what that person said.

"I did. I'm settling in." I say, before feeling the same wind in my mind before hearing the soothing voice again.

*Tell them I'm unresponsive and that you're starting your work, please.*

"He's not moving, so I'll do what you asked." I continue, compelled to speak out. Is it my thoughts to do as he asked, or have I truly been 'compelled?' He told me he was in my thoughts, right?

"Good, the faster you're done, the better." Maris says.

*I'm not controlling you, I know better. They created me to become the perfect body. They grew tired of the weaknesses of the human body, of sickness, of the need to consume to live, so they made me to replace their fragile bodies. They made me but wanted me to be nothing more than a cocoon to inhabit. They wanted to control me. I don't wish that for anyone, and as such, despite being apparently able to do so, I won't control others. Hm. I feel you want to talk, but you don't have to actually speak. Just think what you want to say, and I will answer in your mind.*

« Like that? »

*Like that will do.*

« How do you know all of this? »

*Just like I know about you and your intentions. I read their mind. The difference being that I did it for them unconsciously, when my self started to develop a thought process. I heard their thoughts, felt their emotions, watched their memories, and woke up in the pods they made for me. Before they could control me, I took refuge here. I couldn't understand why I couldn't feel all the people that came to meet me until I remembered their creation, clones, empty vessels, what I was supposed to become should they have succeeded to control me. I didn't realize until a couple of those clones started 'shutting down' that I had made them blind. My body, this body, has a lot of different things that I don't yet understand.*

« You have powers…» I thought, seemingly to myself, but he apparently heard it.

*Yes, powers. That is what it looks like. The people who came here to rescue you and your friends seem to have them as well, though I feel a sense of familiarity with them.*

"Someone's here?" I say out loud, too surprised to keep to myself.

"What do you mean someone's here?" Jerome asks, intrigued.

"I hear people outside, I think." I answer, trying to mask my surprise.

"It's just clones working on something. Keep working. How long do you think it will take?" Maris asks me rudely.

"I don't know, maybe a couple of hours?"

"You have one hour. After that we'll start hurting your friends." he says.

*Don't worry, the others will arrive before then. Tell me, how does it feel, being blind?* he asks.

« I don't understand. It doesn't 'feel' like anything? It's just different, I guess? I feel more with my other senses that's for sure, but I don't really think of my blindness anymore. I find things more rewarding when I can feel them with my fingers. »

*Would you like me to try and restore your sight?*

« You can do that? » I ask, incredulous.

*I feel that I could, yes. But I'll first have to turn off this light I'm emitting. But I don't know how, yet. I'll have to ask you to help with that.*

« I don't know If I would. »

*You don't want to help me?* he says, sounding a little hurt.

« No, that's not what I meant. Of course I'll help you. It's just, I'm not sure I would want to see again. I've become so used to the darkness that the idea of living in the light seem scary to me. You see, there is a sense of comfort to it. I often catch myself just sitting in a park, listening to the sounds of life around me, but without the distraction of the city to see, I find it much more fulfilling. It's a kind of meditation if I would have to put a name on it. Anyway, what can I do to help you? » I ask. He doesn't answer for a few seconds.

*You've given me much to think about Mrs. Matters. I thank you for your thoughts.* he finally says, and I can 'feel' him bowing his head, somehow. *I'm going to need to speak to those who are coming, but I can't see them directly, and the same is true as well. I don't want to hurt them accidentally or blind them. I'm going to keep a connection between us open, just like the one we have right now, so that you can speak with them on my behalf. Once they're here, the people who kidnapped you and your friends won't be able to do anything anyway. But for now we need to keep this charade.*

« You call me Mrs. Matters, but I don't know what to call you? »

*The scientists started calling me Him as a way to suppress my humanity and personality, but I don't really feel human anyway, so you can call me Him as well, for now. I don't believe it is time for me to have a name yet, anyway. The others will be coming in a while, I'll relay to you what I hear and feel. The four scientists who took you are getting restless.*

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"I took care of the two cannons! Alfred, talk to me." Johnny said, coming back to the beach area, looking at the huge rectangular honeycomb like structure.

"The car is touching down now, the building in front of you is the first part of the scientists building, which they designed as a fortress. This is their defensive wall, and it appears there is movement on the high wall. 14 targets are assembling on top of the wall with what appears to be tasers and other non-lethal weapons."

"Thank you Alfred. Johnny, we're here. Ben will draw their fire while Sue takes care of their weapons. Once that's done we'll get ready to breach in. Alfred is scanning the door to find the weak points, which you'll get to melt in a couple of minutes."

"Okay, and what are you doing? Where did you get a gun?" He asks, seeing me fiddling with a modified gun.

"That's a small project of mine, to avoid having to deal with too many people. I bought an air-soft pistol and modified it. It shoots small pellets that will stun and incapacitate targets, courtesy of Sue's work on dendrotoxin. I have about 90 pellets or so made for now."

"So it's a tranquilizer?" Ben asks, checking out the high walls and getting a bit in front of all of us.

"Yes. We don't know how the 70 targets will react once the scientists are down, so that will be one less thing to worry about. Is that what you took in your lab before we left?" asks Sue.

"This and more, I didn't know what we might face here. Alright, let's get to it. Ben, if you would?" He sighs.

"COME ON!" he shouts, before running up the doors, right in front of us. As soon as he started running, the clones opened fire, with all shots just ricocheting or crashing against his rock-like skin. During that, Sue concentrated, and pulled their weapons out of their hands one by one. Without their weapons, it doesn't seem like they knew what to do as they just stood there without doing anything else. Preparing the gun, I saw Johnny sending me puppy eyes. Soon enough, all the targets were standing on top of the wall without moving, and Alfred was still scanning the structure from the sensors on the car.

"Fine, but you better not miss more than 5 shots." I sais, giving him the glorified tranquilizer. He took it with a smile, and launched himself to the wall. Taking his time with the first target to get used to the weight of the gun, he finally fired. Walking and dodging as if the enemies were firing back, it looked like he was having fun. He definitely missed 6 shots, but with the job done and the biggest smile on his face I saw in a while, I let it slip. Once Alfred was done, he melted the structural weak points of the doors, before Ben took them down by punching a couple of times.

From the other side, another ten clones were waiting with lethal weapons at the ready. They didn't shoot yet, but a screen behind them turned on.

"What the hell do you brats want?" Said Maris appearing on screen. "We're working here, it's not your place to play around. Go back to your foundation and work on your disappearing pods. It's been how long? 3 months for you to get back from there?"

"Hi, Maris. It's been a while. We're here to stop you from keeping on doing it is you're here for. Cloning and kidnapping are two things you could get jail time for, probably." Said Johnny.

"Don't make it more complicated than it already is, stop whatever you're doing before it's too late. A reason we never allowed your experiments is the danger potential. You knew the risks and still tried human teleportation. It may have worked, but you could have killed them, you, and the entire f*cking northern hemisphere. Not to mention, cloning? Really?" I ask.

"F*ck you. Hey! Clones! F-" He shouted, before the screen crushed on itself. Looking by my side, Sue had her right arm up, pointing at the screen.

"What? At least we know they need vocal orders before doing anything." She says.

"Right. Let's try something. Drop your weapons." I say, waiting for them to do so. After a few seconds, nothing happened. "Alfred? Was there any vocal archives of any of the four scientists to have a few orders? Like 'stand down', or something?"

"Yes, sir. Pulling out files now." Another voice, Jerome's, I believe, sounded with the order to stand down. Soon enough, the ten clones in front of us sat on the floor on either side of the wall, with their weapons down.

"Great. That's good. What else can you make them do?" Johnny asked.

"We don't have time for this right now. Ask if they can open the door, we won't waste much time if they can."

"I'm afraid I'm not sure it will work. Unfortunately the archives don't have a lot of audio samples. I can try using two different voices, but the result is not 100% guaranteed."

"Try it anyway. We won't know if we don't try." Sue said. Alfred tried using both voices to tell them to open the door, but it unfortunately didn't happen. I took my backpack and looked for something to help us out. Sue and Johnny went to the clones to try and talk to them. Sue to see if we could help any of them, Johnny mainly because of their handsome and beautiful features. Ben checked the surroundings and broke the few small cameras he found, and I quickly whipped up a tool that wasn't completely finished to open the reinforced doors in front of us. After a few minutes, Sue called out for me.

"Reed, you need to come see this." I stopped what I was doing to check out what it is she had in her hand.

"What is it?" I asked, seeing the now very familiar Z-Radiation device in her hands.

"All of them were positive for Z Radiations. I don't think they have powers, but I can't for sure say they don't." She said, her eyebrows furrowed in a very pronounced frown.

"I don't think that was on purpose. They would have sent the clones with powers to stop us otherwise. Alfred, what was in those boxes? Cross-reference with all we know of Dimension Zero and our own experiments. Maris seemed to know a bit about it."

"Dr. Morlak and Dr. Zota both helped make the pods that you used to travel to Dimension Zero. The elements to create a couple of those were in one of the stolen containers."

"That's it. They must have used the pods to make their clones. They don't know about Dimension Zero because they left before we came back. As such, there was no way for them to realize that using the pods to help with cloning actually used energy or elements from another dimension. We'll need to keep a closer eye on the clones than I thought. At least for a while. I'm going back to this," I say, lifting the small tool up, "I'm almost done with it."

"Reed, that's not all. When I turn the device to the structure, it shows me an extreme level of radiation. Of Z-Radiation. Much more than all of us combined when not using our powers for months. The anomaly you detected? I think that's it." she said, concerned.

"We'll take care of it when it comes to that. We have a door to break through for now. If you can think of something by the time we make contact with the anomaly we'll be fine. I believe in you. You found something wrong with us when none of us knew there was something wrong. If anyone can figure it out, it's you." I said, before kissing her forehead and going back to the tool. After another couple of minutes, I was done. "Alright, let's go." I said, heading to the door.

"So, what did you make this time? A door-opening remote?" Johnny said, smirking.

"Something like that," I said, turning the metal rod to the side, making sure no one was in the way. Pressing a small button on the side, a bright light shone, almost blinding the both of us.

"You made a portable plasma cutter?" he said, finally recognizing the design.

"Yes, but with a small arc reactor and the molecular alloys, it's about thirty to thirty-five times more powerful than a regular plasma cutter. At this point, elongating the tip would effectively turn it into-"

"A REAL-LIFE LIGHT-SABER! I want one!"

"You do know that if you practice long enough you could theoretically achieve a similar heat, right?"

"There's a difference between being capable of it, and having an actual light-saber." he said, looking at me starting to melt open the reinforced doors with relative ease. "Come on, it's so cool! You never let me have the cool toys."

"Dude, how old are you? Plus, the Fantasti-car is yours, and I let you play with the tranquilizer earlier. Guys, get ready I'm almost through the d-" interrupting me, we all felt a large vibration resonating through the walls, much like an explosion just without the sound usually accompanying such an event.

"What was that?" asked Sue.

"Felt like an explosion. Maybe they tried something and it went wrong?" Ben answered.

"Alfred, what did you get anything?"

"All I got from it are the vibrations, which concur with the idea of an explosion. I'm not reading any nuclear radiation, though." Alfred said.

"Alright, we're through, stay sharp everyone." I say, putting the light- plasma cutter back in the bag. Ben knocks the doors aside, and enters the building, with all of us following behind him. Walking for a small while, we finally enter a large room with what looks like the remnants of an experiment gone wrong. Charred floor and walls, electronics still burning, metal everywhere, with a central platform still intact. Walking up to it, we find a mangled body, or bodies, rather. It seems that they tried escaping by using the teleporter but failed in their attempt and ended up fusing to each other, destroying the structure at the same time. Seeing the state of the bodies, Johnny throws up on the side.

"Are they…. Really dead?" Ben asks, looking at the corpse on the floor.

"For now I can't say for sure. The bodies they left in the Baxter building were perfect copies of themselves, but contrary to the last time, we know they have the means to pull off actual clones. Sue and I will check. I'll also try to ask a certified medical examiner to make sure, maybe see if they have food in their stomachs. I also remember reading about how hair follicles can be analyzed to see a history of the food the person ate, so I'll try to find how that worked. If they haven't eaten anything, this might be clones again. In the meantime, we'll act as if they are still alive. We need to check the rest of the building. Sue and I will go find what the anomaly is exactly, I'll let you guys secure the rest of the building. Johnny, here's the gun and the rest of the ammo I have, if you find clones, just ask Alfred to tell them to stand down and then make them go to sleep. If you can, instead of making them sleep just where they are, try to make them follow you outside when you checked the rest of the structure, it will be easier that way."

"What will be easier?" he asks, taking the tranquilizer.

"Transport. We need to take them all with us. We can't let them stay here if the others are still alive nor can we let them die here otherwise. We'll try to rehabilitate them, or at least let them live actual lives in our building instead of this slave nest." I answer, accompanying Sue towards the anomaly. After a few minutes of walking around, following the radioactive energy, we arrive at the top of a stairway, with a woman waiting for us.

"Hi! Are you here for us?" she says, her eyes unfocused.

"Yes we are. Alicia Matters, I presume?" She nods. "I'm Reed Richards, this is Susan Storm."

"Hello." Sue says.

"We've come here to rescue you, but we've discovered something strange on this floor."

"Yes, Him. That's… How he calls himself." We look at each other. "He was waiting for you, but you can't see him yet."

"We can't?" Sue asks, perplexed.

"Not if you want to go blind. He has powers, and one of those is the ability to turn himself into a blinding light. That's why they took me. They needed me to approach Him, since all the clones they sent went blind. He can't control his power, so that's why you can't see him. Another of his power is the ability to speak in your mind. Apparently he can read thoughts, but not all. He couldn't read the clones', nor can he read yours. So he's talking with me to ask you for help."

"Why can't he read our minds?" Sue ask.

"And why our particular help?" I add. After a few seconds, she answers.

"He says you feel familiar to Him, like a distant relative. There seem to be a shroud around the four of you, which makes it impossible for him to read your thoughts. That shroud is what makes him feel a connection to you."

"It should be the radiation from Dimension Zero." I say quietly to Sue. "I'm assuming he is a clone?" I ask Alicia. She nods. Does he remember what the pod he came out of looked like? Was it silvery-white on the side with a blue glass on top, with white cushioning on the inside?" Alicia stays silent for a couple of seconds before nodding again. "This pod was designed to access another dimension, called Zero. It's still relatively unknown at this time, but when we explored it a few months ago, a radioactive storm affected us and gave us these powers. We have since discovered that the radiation was affecting our brain and feelings when not using our powers regularly. When scanning this structure, we discovered that Him — is that right? — that he was emitting those radiations, as were the clones around the structure. Him having powers may be linked with that. The clones don't seem to have any, but my current theory is that the pod, by producing those clones, was saturated by the radiation and while birthing him, all the radiation in the pod was transmitted to Him, giving him his powers."

"He's asking how you control them."

"I think focus and practice did it for all of us. More focus for me, and more practice for Johnny, but it seems to be the two main factors in helping us control our powers. Reed, could you try telling him what you said when we first woke up with them?"

"I told her that it was part of her, that the main thing was to keep calm and focus on herself, finding what had changed and how that changed affected her. He seems to be born with the powers, so that may not help Him. Control and practice might not be enough either. Here, I'll work on something that might help, Sue, could you give Alicia the radiation device to measure and record the type of radiation coming from Him? She'll scan Him and if possible bring the device back so that I can finish this." I said, pulling a bulky watch from the bag.

"He's asking what that is." Alicia reports, while Sue pulls the device out and prepares it for her.

"That was something I was working on to help us mitigate the radiation in our bodies in case we couldn't use our powers for a while. I'll modify a few things from it and configure it for his particular need." I said, while starting to fiddle with it.

"How many of these things do you have in that bag?" Sue says, looking at the device in my hands. Alicia leaves us, the device in her hand, ready to scan Him.

"That's the first prototype, there's only one of those. If you want more I'll need to build another one once we're home." I answer.

"No, I meant how many gadgets do you have in that bag? How many prototypes did you build and bring here?"

"Oh, just a couple more in the bag. I have more prototypes in my lab but they're bulkier so I couldn't bring them here today. I didn't think this would even be useful but it wasn't that cumbersome to carry so I took it as well," I say, pointing at the watch. "Don't worry, I'll show you everything I made and I'm working on when we get back," seeing her pout, I conclude: "I promise."


End file.
